Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

The Hartlepools

Commander Kerans: asked the President of the Board of Trade what further prospects he has in mind to assist the expansion of industries in the Hartlepools, which now has the highest unemployment rates in the North-East.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll): I am aware of the continuing high unemployment in the Hartlepools and I shall continue in my efforts to steer new industry to the area. Since my hon. and gallant Friend asked a similar Question on 3rd August, 1961, two firms have decided to set up in production in the Hartlepools and several others have been shown sites in the area.

Commander Kerans: I appreciate the efforts my right hon. Friend is making in this direction, but nevertheless the figure of unemployment in the Hartlepools is tragic, having risen from 3·8 per cent. to 6 per cent. at present. We have to face the reduction in the Reserve Fleet next year, with a further hundred or so unemployed to come. We still have the bulge ahead of us. There are still large areas in the Hartlepools Industrial Estate which are ready for expansion. May I express the hope that my right hon. Friend will continue his efforts in this direction?

Mr. Erroll: Yes. I am glad to be able to reassure my hon. and gallant Friend that we will do all we possibly can and will continue our efforts.

Steel and Steel Products

Mr. Wise: asked the President of the Board of Trade what evidence he has received of monopolistic practices by

the firms engaged in the production of steel in this country.

Mr. Erroll: I have received no evidence suggesting that there are grounds for referring the supply of steel and steel products to the Monopolies Commission, but a number of agreements between steel producers have been registered under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act.

Mr. Wise: Does not this make utter and total nonsense of a publication by the Labour Party which is, I believe, entitled, "Pipe Dream for the Sixties"?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That cannot possibly be a question for the Minister.

Anti-Dumping Action

Mr. Walker: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he takes to ensure that, when an application for action against dumping is made to him, he has immediate information of the price at which the commodity which is the subject of the application is being sold in the country of origin.

Mr. Erroll: The Board of Trade normally expects an industry which applies for anti-dumping action to provide some initial evidence of the price at which the commodity suspected of being dumped is being sold in the country of origin. If the case appeared to justify fuller investigation, the Board would then immediately set on foot further inquiries.

Mr. Walker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that certain producers were alarmed last year—for example over the case of the Polish eggs—when it took the Board of Trade about twenty days to obtain confirmation of the internal price of eggs in Poland? Will my right hon. Friend consider the possibility of looking at certain cases where commodities have been repeatedly dumped to ensure that the embassies in those countries keep a constant watch on the internal price so that this information can be obtained quickly?

Mr. Erroll: I think that I ought to remind my hon. Friend that it is for the industry to take the initiative. In the case of Polish eggs, which we have argued at length during this year, the Board of Trade was able to act very


quickly indeed. I am sorry to have to tell my hon. Friend that it really would not be possible for us to maintain a constant watch at all embassies in all countries in regard to all products which might at any time be dumped.

Mr. Walker: Is my right hon. Friend aware hat in the case of Polish eggs, although the Board of Trade acted quickly once the internal price had been confirmed, it was twenty days from the time the Board of Trade agreed to look into the price of eggs before it confirmed what the price was? Does he agree that this is undue delay?

Mr. Erroll: No. The question goes much wider than Polish eggs. If my hon. Friend is not satisfied with the steps we took on Polish eggs, I should be glad if he would table a Question on the matter.

Mr. Peyton: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a great deal of the difficulty in this matter stems from the fact that it is hard to ascertain internal prices in countries behind the Iron Curtain? Although I appreciate that he has to defend this system, I hope that he will realise that there is a great deal of discontent about the way in which it is being run. I hope that he will look at this, because customers, on whose behalf the system was instituted, are very far from sharing his satisfaction.

Mr. Erroll: I appreciate the concern felt by many people about the operation of the Act, but I have said before, and I should like to repeat, that just as soon as an industry or a group of people come and see us at the Board of Trade we will then be very glad to look at the matter urgently; but we cannot take action in anticipation of a possible approach, because to do so would mean that we should always be running round after every possible hare which might never become a starter.

Exports

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the President of the Board of Trade what further action he proposes to take to improve the competitive position of the manufacturing industries and increase United Kingdom export trade.

Mr. Erroll: These will continue to be major objectives of the Government's

policy, but the primary responsibility for improving the competitiveness of United Kingdom industry and for increasing exports rests with managers, designers, salesmen and workers engaged in the production of goods and services.

Mr. Ellis Smith: As the President of the Board of Trade has had great experience in large-scale, efficient industry engaged in the export trade, will he now take the initiative so that resolute and urgent action can be taken to increase our exports, which would be in harmony with world expansion of trade? Does he not agree that those of us who have always deprecated the subordination of Britain's trade interests to our foreign policy have now been proved correct?

Mr. Erroll: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will continue to urge industry to increase its exports. As proof of that, we are constantly improving and overhauling the services we give to exporters and would-be exporters. Furthermore, the Chancellor's policy for the economy of the country as a whole is likewise designed to encourage and increase exports.

Cost Comparisons

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he has made a study of the cost comparisons, circulated at the International Industrial Conference held in San Francisco, details of which have been sent to him by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South; what is the reason for the high cost of United Kingdom materials, the low cost of labour and the relative low cost of the total unit cost; and if he will carry out an investigation into the increased cost of materials sold to the manufacturing industries engaged in the export trades in relation to world prices, in view of the need to take all measures to improve the competitive ability of United Kingdom exports.

Mr. Erroll: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my hon. Friend to a Question about these cost comparisons put by my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) on Tuesday last.

Mr. Ellis Smith: It would be interesting to know the date on which that matter was first raised and not allow it


to affect us too much. Does the Minister agree that the cost of raw materials to British manufacturers, particularly those engaged in the export trade, is all wrong? Does he not agree that there is need for an urgent investigation into those costs in order that we may be fair, and that those manufacturers should be helped so that they would have a fair chance?

Mr. Erroll: I would rather like to study the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question before trying to answer it.

Industrial Employment, Eastern Region

Mr. Jay: asked the President of the Board of Trade what measures he proposes to take to check the excessive growth of industrial employment in the Eastern Region shown in Appendix 6 of the First Annual Report by the Board of Trade on the Local Employment Act, 1960.

Mr. Erroll: The growth of industrial employment in the Eastern Region has been large, but I do not agree that it has been excessive. Six of the eight London new towns and seven expanded towns are in the Eastern Region. The purpose of these new and expanded towns is to receive overspill population from London and, of course, employment has to be provided for the people moving into these overspill towns. Of the estimated 16,348 new jobs in the Region, 11,046 were in these overspill towns.

Mr. Jay: Although I realise that the cause of this expansion in the Eastern Region is largely the new towns, would the President of the Board of Trade examine rather seriously whether, if the expansion goes too far, it will not distort his whole attempt to restrain the excessive expansion of employment in south-east England generally? Would he agree that the figures for the Eastern Region are very much out of line with those for the other regions?

Mr. Erroll: I could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, because the Eastern and South-Eastern Regions, taken together, accommodate 27 per cent. of the total employed in manufacturing industry for the country as a whole, but they shared only 22·8 per cent. of the country's additional employment. They are not, therefore, growing

more rapidly than other parts. Whenever we find a firm which can be moved to a development district, we certainly take the opportunity of persuading it to go there.

Mr. Jay: While I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman is doing and will go on doing his best, may I ask if he is not really saying that the expansion in the Eastern Region has gone a long way towards nullifying the restrictions he has successfully applied in London and the South-East?

Mr. Erroll: It must be remembered that some of the country's most expanding industries are located in London and the South-East Region, and must be allowed a certain amount of expansion in their existing locations.

Cotton Yarn and Woven Cloth

Mr. Hale: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that for the first ten months of 1961 imports of cotton yarn and woven cotton cloth exceeded exports; and what steps he proposes to take to improve the position.

Mr. Erroll: I am aware that for the last two or three years imports of cotton yarn and woven cloth have exceeded exports. When I visited Manchester on 8th December, I discussed with the industry the disappointing export trend in recent years and how this might be remedied. My Department is now following the matter up direct with the various sections of the industry.

Mr. Hale: It is all very well for the President of the Board of Trade to say that he is following the matter up, but what has he done, and what does he propose to do? Will he spend the Christmas Recess reading the various statements made from the Government Front Bench over the last ten years every time the Government have attacked the industry? Will he read the Government's statements when there was the revision of the Liverpool Cotton Market; when the Cotton Board was crippled, and when re-equipment came in? Does he realise that what was once our greatest export industry has been reduced to the condition in which it is a net loser—in which there is an overseas liability on textiles? Does he really intend to do something about it, and do


the Government really care about the textile industry?

Mr. Erroll: Of course the Government care about the textile industry, and if the hon. Gentleman would stay until later in the day he could, perhaps, join in a debate on the cotton industry in which I will be able to reply more fully to the points he has just raised.

Cotton Spinning and Doubling

Mr. Hale: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that a further recession has taken place in employment in cotton spinning and doubling of over 10 per cent. since December, 1959, and that estimates of short-time working show local figures approaching 10 per cent.; and what steps he proposes to take to increase employment.

Mr. Erroll: I am aware that employment in cotton spinning and doubling has declined since December, 1959, and that short-time working in these sections of the cotton industry has recently increased, but there is no shortage of employment in the cotton area as a whole.

Mr. Hale: While we are all glad that there is no shortage of employment in the cotton area—and that is the one thing that saves us—may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that short-time workers are getting other jobs, and are never coming back? They have had enough. They have been shifted backwards and forwards with these crises and increases and diminutions, and they are never coming back. How will we maintain skilled employment in the textile industry unless some assurance, some certainty is given, and unless the market itself knows whether we are Common-marketing or Common-wealthing, or what we are to do in the future? How will they know?

Mr. Erroll: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to my previous supplementary answer.

Imperial Tobacco Company (Monopolies Commission's Report)

Mr. Lipton: asked the President of the Board of Trade what action he is taking to implement the recommendations of the Monopolies Commission

that the Imperial Tobacco Company should dispose of its shares in Gallaher.

Mr. Erroll: I regret that I cannot yet add anything to the reply given to the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) on 28th November.

Mr. Lipton: Is not this quite a disgusting state of affairs? Why is the President of the Board of Trade so weak-kneed and lily-livered in his approach to the tobacco barons who are continuing to flout with impunity the very carefully-considered recommendations of the Monopolies Commission which it took five years to reach? When does the Minister intend to put his foot down, and not allow himself to be treated like a doormat by these tobacco magnates?

Mr. Erroll: I do not propose to reply to the hon. Gentleman's more offensive allegations, but I would inform him that it is far more important to reach the right decision than it is to reach a decision quickly. Nevertheless, I hope that it will be possible to make an announcement shortly.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: While not adopting the line taken by the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton)—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—because I do not happen to agree with it—may I ask whether my right hon. Friend is aware that earlier this month I had an intimation from his Department that an answer, one way or the other, would soon be coming? While I have no particularly strong feelings on what that answer should be, I think that it really is time that the Government made up their mind one way or the other.

Mr. Erroll: I have said in a previous supplementary answer that I hope to make an announcement shortly. I am sorry that I cannot do so before the House rises for the Christmas Recess.

Mr. Jay: Why is the President of the Board of Trade so terrified of the Imperial Tobacco Company? Surely it should be possible, even for this Government, to make up their mind in six months on a simple proposal like this?

Mr. Erroll: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I am not afraid of the Imperial Tobacco Company, or of the


insinuations in his supplementary question.

Mr. Lipton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the right hon. Gentleman's reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter at the earliest possible opportunity on the Adjournment.

Motor Cycle and Allied Industries (Exports)

Mr. Edelman: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will initiate discussions with trade unions and employers in the motor cycle and allied industries in order to make the necessary adaptations within these industries to ensure that exports are expanded or at least maintained.

Mr. Erroll: No, Sir.

Mr. Edelman: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that the American motor industry intends next year to manufacture a million of what it calls sub-compact motor cars, which will be an even more grievous challenge to our already contracting motor industry than was the introduction of the compact car, which made such an important contribution to our recession in 1958? In those circumstances, is it not desirable that the motor industry should have some form of association, for example, with the Chancellor's new planning body, in order to concert its efforts, which have hitherto been anarchic, catch-as-catch-can, and snatching a quick profit only to be followed by a prolonged recession?

Mr. Erroll: I read the hon. Gentleman's Question as referring to the motorcycle, and not the motor-car, industry. I do not know whether he intended me to consider the motor-car industry as well but, if so, the answer would be the same. When the new planning organisation is set up, it will be for the Council to decide what subjects it should study first.

Mr. Edelman: Is not that a rather supine attitude on the part of the Minister? Is not it the case that the Government have a responsibility in this matter, and should not they take some initiative in connection with the whole range of the motor industry, from motor cycles to motor cars? Is it not up to the Minister to take some initiative in this matter?

Mr. Erroll: I should like hon. Gentlemen opposite to realise that the Government are not responsible for everything. Industry is responsible for running itself, and the Government do not want to become meddlesome old governesses poking their noses into everything that goes on.

Renault Motor Cars

Mr. Edelman: asked the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received from British motor manufacturers in connection with the dumping of Renault motor cars for eventual resale to private hire companies; and, in view of the damaging effect which this dumping has had on firms who manufacture taxi-cabs, what action he is taking to prevent this form of unfair competition.

Mr. Erroll: I have had no representations from the British motor manufacturers. It is open to them to apply for action under the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act, 1957 if they can show some evidence that dumping is taking place and is causing or threatening material injury to the British industry.

Mr. Edelman: Is not it an undoubted fact that, during the recession of 1958, the Renault manufacturers brought back from the United States a large number of Renault cars, dumped them at Southampton and then issued them to the minicab proprietors, thus introducing two elements of unfair competition, firstly to the men in my constituency who make London's taxicabs, and, secondly, to the operators of minicabs who, because of these preferential arrangements, have been able to undercut the legitimate operators?

Mr. Erroll: It is up to the industry concerned—or one particular firm manufacturing a specialised article—to make application to the Board of Trade under the Act. As I have said on a number of occasions, the Board of Trade is only too willing to hold informal talks with a minimum of delay at an early stage with an industry to see whether any application is likely to succeed and to help the industry in framing its application in the most favourable light.

Mr. Lipton: Will the President also have informal talks with the Home


Secretary about the present situation in London arising from the minicab development?

Mr. Speaker: That question is not for this Minister.

Factory, Huyton (Employment)

Mr. H. Wilson: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will state the maximum number employed at the Board of Trade factory in Wilson Road, Huyton, originally leased to Hosemaster and now leased to the English Electric Company, the number presently employed in that factory and his estimate of that number for the future.

Mr. Erroll: Statistics of employment in a particular factory are confidential and cannot be disclosed.

Mr. Wilson: But does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the numbers now employed and intended to be employed fall far short of the hopes of the Board of Trade in this respect? In view of assurance given by his predecessor that this factory would be leased only for production and not for storage, what steps is the right hon. Gentleman taking to see that that assurance is being honoured?

Mr. Erroll: I am not going to be drawn into giving any information about the level of employment, because that would be a breach of the confidential nature of the collection of the statistics.

Mr. Wilson: Is not the right hon. Gentleman in this case once again showing his weakness and also his tenderness for private firms when there is Government money involved? Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that this factory, which was built many years ago with Government money, was intended to provide the maximum employment in an area of considerable unemployment? In view of the assurances that were given quite clearly and specifically in this House that it would be used for production, even if the right hon. Gentleman dare not tell us about the employment figures—which makes us suspicious about this—can he say what is being done to honour the assurance that this factory would be used for production and not for storage or for repair work?

Mr. Erroll: I will look into the question of assurances but I do not think, from what I know of the subject, that the situation is as described by the right hon. Gentleman in his supplementary questions.

Imperial Chemical Industries and Courtaulds

Mr. Marsh: asked the President of the Board of Trade, in view of the number of industries involved, the effect on the national economy, and the monopoly involved, if he will immediately refer the merger between Imperial Chemical Industries and Courtaulds to the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. Jay: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will refer to the Monopolies Commission the merger between Imperial Chemical Industries and Courtaulds, in view of the increased danger of monopoly involved.

Mr. Erroll: I have no power to refer proposals for a merger to the Monopolies Commission. Should the merger, if it takes place, give rise to conditions in which I considered that there were grounds for referring to the Commission the supply of any of the goods affected, I would of course do so.

Mr. Marsh: In view of the enormous and unprecedented range of industries involved in this prospective or potential merger, cannot the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that he will use his influence to try to prevent it taking place until he has had a full inquiry into its possible effects? If this enormous concentration of economic and commercial power is necessary or, perhaps, inevitable, would not the right hon. Gentleman make it quite clear that if such a merger did take place the nation, in an effort to control its own destiny, would have to have public control of those industries?

Mr. Erroll: The answer to all those questions is "No, Sir".

Mr. Jay: In view of the huge aggregation of industrial power involved and the monopoly likely to be created in practically all synthetic fibres, and some other products, does not the right hon. Gentleman really think that the merits of the case, from the point of view of


the public interest, should be argued before some sort of public tribunal before an operation of this size goes forward?

Mr. Erroll: No. I do not agree with that at all.

Mr. Walker: Could my right hon. Friend confirm that it would be wrong for firms contemplating mergers which would create a monopoly situation to assume that if we entered the Common Market they would not come wider the existing restrictive practices and monopolies legislation?

Mr. Erroll: I think that that is a matter which would have to be carefully considered.

Mr. Rhodes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the monopolistic dangers here are infinitestimal compared with the tremendous advantage in the competitive field if these two organisations came together, because of the economies that would be involved and because of the size of the undertaking, which would be able to protect raw material prices for textile manufactures in this country?

Mr. Ellis Smith: Better this than the Americans taking it over.

Mr. Erroll: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) for having pointed to some of the advantages of the proposed merger. Other hon. Gentlemen have pointed to some of the disadvantages. It is because I think there are prospective advantages as well as prospective possible disadvantages that I have answered in the way I have.

Mr. Callaghan: The right hon. Gentleman has given singularly little information about the Government's view on this. May I put it to him that, as there are these differences of views about the advantages and disadvantages, there must be a weakness in our legislation at the moment if a merger can take place which involves, I believe, 140,000 employees and nearly £1,000 million capital without the public interest in the matter being declared at any time? While there may be a great deal to be said on both sides, should it not be possible for the Government to indicate, in view of the importance of this to the national economy, that we will have a

considered view on the matter so that the nation can make up its mind?

Mr. Erroll: I thought that it was clear that the people who are proposing the merger would have the interests of the companies in mind and, naturally, the interests of their staff. The public interest is best served by their continuing to sell their products as cheaply and efficiently as possible, and only in that way can they remain a profitable undertaking.

Mr. Jay: While, of course, it is the business of the heads of these companies to consider the interests of their own shareholders and staff, and while there are advantages and disadvantages involved, does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that his own colleagues have argued earlier this week that the public interest should be considered by wage tribunals in quite minor wage negotiations? Is it the view of the Government that that should happen in wage and salary negotiations, yet a huge industrial merger of this kind should not even be considered from the point of view of the public interest?

Exports (Strategic List)

Mr. Rankin: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to revise the strategic list of prohibited exports.

Mr. Erroll: I would refer the hon Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr Warbey) on 21st November.

Mr. Rankin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have looked at that Answer and at others? Could he tell me why the Government are pursuing policies at home, like the wage pause, in order to try to rectify the imbalance between our exports and imports, and at the same time pursuing policies abroad which will restrict our chance of exporting, in spite of the fact that those policies have notably failed in respect of Chincom and Cocom and will continue to fail in so far as the Common Market is the method of carrying on these policies? Could not the right hon. Gentleman think in more liberal terms? Does he not realise that so long as multilateral trading exists, this type of restriction in trade is bound to fail, as I have seen with my own eyes?

Mr. Erroll: I hope the hon. Gentleman realises that the embargo is restricted to goods of strategic importance. The trade in those goods is necessarily limited.

Mr. Rankin: While the right hon. Gentleman is exporting Viscount aircraft to China, which I welcome and which every sensible person welcomes, will he say whether he will refuse to export the necessary aviation spirit required to fly the Viscounts, in view of the fact that aviation spirit is on the embargo list?

Mr. Erroll: I think that we shall have to look at that matter when we know whether the Chinese wish to purchase a brand of spirit which is embargoed. We need to know a great deal more about exactly what spirit they have in mind and what is required for operating these Viscounts.

Petrol

Mr. Rankin: asked the President of the Boa rd of Trade what arrangements he has sanctioned for licences for the sale of petrol from Italy in Great Britain, other than petrol deriving from Soviet sources.

Mr. Erroll: No licences are required for such imports.

Mr. Rankin: I take it that the oil is coming. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that not so long ago his predecessor stated that in this country oil was running out of our ears? Is the right hon. Gentleman now bringing it in from Italy so that oil will run from our noses, too?

Mr. Erroll: In pursuance of our policy of free competition in this country being the best way of serving the public need, we see no objection to the company called A.G.I.P. finding an outlet for retail sales in this country.

Mr. Rankin: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me how our policy of free competition harmonises with our policy of restricted exports?

Mr. Speaker: No, not on this Question.

Mr. Rankin: Surely that is pertinent to the Question?

Mr. Speaker: The Question is about licensing arrangements for the sale of petrol.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

National Production Advisory Council on Industry

Mr. W. Yates: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer on what days this year he met the National Production Advisory Council on Industry; whether export incentive schemes were on the agenda of those meetings; what action was decided upon; and if he will make a statement.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): On 3rd February, 5th May, and 10th November. There was also a meeting on 21st July at which the Chair was taken by my right hon. Friend, the then President of of the Board of Trade.
Although export incentive schemes were not on the agenda as a separate item at these meetings, there was a general and useful discussion at each of them on the subject of export promotion. It was agreed that it was not in the interests of the United Kingdom to adopt subsidies or preferential tax arrangements for exporters.

Mr. Yates: In view of that reply, may I ask how the Midlands industries will be able to compete with their opposite numbers either in the Common Market or in West Germany? Will the Minister get this right? If the financial policies of the Chancellor of the Exchequer do not command the confidence of British exporters or of the trade unions, or the respect of the City, he must realise that it is high time that the Chancellor accepted an earldom.

Mr. Barber: That supplementary question goes far wider than the Question on the Order Paper which asked whether export incentive schemes were discussed by this Council. I would only say to my hon. Friend that from my own knowledge—and I do get around quite a lot—I think he is taking far too pessimistic a view of what people—industry, trade unions and others—think of the financial policy of my right hon. and learned Friend.

Mr. Yates: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the President of the Board of Trade has just replied that the Government are not responsible for export trade policy? If that is so, who is


responsible for the export trade policy of Her Majesty's Government? Will the hon. Gentleman answer that?

Mr. Barber: What my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is trying to do is to pursue an economic policy which will provide the right climate for our exporters. Indeed, if my hon. Friend will look back at what my right hon. and learned Friend said when he introduced his measures on 25th July this year, he will see that this was one of the aspects which were foremost in his mind.

University Teachers (Salaries)

Mr. Millan: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish the representations made to him at the end of July, 1961, by the University Grants Committee about university salaries; and what decision he has reached in this matter.

Mr. J. Hynd: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals were submitted to him in July last by the University Grants Committee concerning salaries of university teachers; and what reply was given to these submissions.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Henry Brooke): The position in respect of this salary claim was explained by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary in his reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) on 27th November, to which I would only add that all relevant matters are being taken into account in considering it. It is not the practice to publish the advice which the Government receives from the University Grants Committee.

Mr. Millan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is very considerable dissatisfaction among university teachers about this claim? Even if the Government think that this is the kind of claim which ought to be subject to the pay pause, could not they at least publish their proposals, even if the operative date is a month or two ahead, so that university teachers can see what is going to happen? There is very considerable annoyance at the fact that they are being kept completely in the dark about this.

Mr. Brooke: I do not take exception to anything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I know that there is genuine concern about this matter, and I hope that it will be possible for the Government to make an announcement reasonably soon.

Mr. Callaghan: As it is generally known, although the advice of the University Grants Committee is not published, that it invited the Association to put in a major wage claim for the rectification of its scales, would the Chief Secretary consider receiving a deputation from the Association so that it could put its case to him, in view of the justifiable grievance that it feels?

Mr. Brooke: No, Sir; we must not do anything to derogate from the position of the University Grants Committee. It is established, and always has been accepted by the House, that it is the University Grants Committee that advises the Government, and I am sure that that is right. I assure the House that I regard this as an important matter and I am extremely anxious to get the position known before the time when the universities will need to recruit for next October.

Mr. Millan: Is not the whole procedure about these salary negotiations extremely unsatisfactory in so far as the Association of University Teachers never knows what the University Grants Committee recommends to the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Why cannot this sort of thing be made clear in some parallel way to what happens with school teachers? Why should they be kept completely in the dark about what is happening?

Mr. Brooke: I do not think universities are exactly of the same status as the schools. The whole system of the Government receiving confidential advice through the University Grants Committee has been accepted by this House for many years and is looked on in the world outside as a remarkably fine method of preserving both the responsibility of the Government and the independence of the universities.

Mr. Callaghan: If the Chief Secretary is not able to receive a deputation from the Association of University Teachers, will he be willing to receive a deputation of Members of this House from both parties to discuss both the


machinery and the nature of the claim? This is the responsibility of the House in the last resort, and, as the university teachers have no negotiating machinery, would it not be proper for Members of this House to take an interest and try to see the Chief Secretary about it?

Mr. Brooke: I am always ready to see Members of the House about any matter, but I do want to press on, and I hope that the hon. Member is not suggesting that there should be any delay in the Government making an announcement.

New Medical Schools

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals have been made to him by the University Grants Committee with regard to the establishment of new medical schools; and whether he has had discussions with the Minister of Health on this subject.

Mr. Brooke: No such proposals have been made to my right hon. Friend or me. I recently requested the University Grants Committee to consider with the universities the implications of the revised estimate of requirement for doctors which was announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health on 29th November.

Mr. Robinson: Is the Chief Secretary aware that it is now generally recognised that we are suffering from a serious and growing shortage of doctors, a shortage which can never be met out of the capacity of the existing medical schools? Does he understand that we are bound to need at least two, or probably three, more medical schools and, since it will be nearly ten years from the taking of the decision before we have any qualified doctors from a new school, will he treat the matter as urgent?

Mr. Brooke: I recognise the urgency of the matter. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health made a statement to the House about the additional need for doctors. Nevertheless, it would really be quite wrong for me to anticipate the advice I receive from the University Grants Committee on this. I invited the University Grants Committee to give me its advice, and it must be for that Committee in the first instance to consider how the increased intake of medical students is to be provided for.

Prime Minister (Visit to Glasgow)

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the nature of the official business connected with the Prime Minister's visit to Glasgow on 3rd November, which cost £56 7s. 9d.

Mr. Brooke: The cost did not relate to official business connected with Glasgow but to the arrangements which always have to be made to enable the Prime Minister to deal with any official business which requires his attention when away from London.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is admitted that this was a private visit of the Prime Minister intended exclusively to raise funds for the Tory Party and that at Glasgow he met Mr. Cotton, Mr. Clore and Sir Hugh Fraser for that very purpose? The Answer given to me on Tuesday, 19th December, was to the effect that the fares of two officials accompanying the Prime Minister cost £33 16s. Why should two officials go to Glasgow at the taxpayers' expense in order to enable the Prime Minister to raise the morale of the Scottish Tory Party and raise funds for it?

Mr. Brooke: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to inquire about what the Prime Minister did in Glasgow, he should put Questions not to me but to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Hamilton: I have put them already.

Mr. Brooke: Perhaps he does not realise that, whenever the Prime Minister goes away from London for any purpose whatever, even to stay with friends, he is always accompanied by a detective and a secretary and possibly by other staff.

Mr. Hamilton: Why should the Prime Minister be accompanied by a secretary on a private visit to Glasgow concerned exclusively with the raising of Tory Party funds? It was not connected with official business at all. In view of the position which the right hon. Gentleman now holds, to cut public expenditure, will he take an axe to this kind of expenditure?

Mr. Brooke: If the hon. Gentleman becomes Prime Minister one day, he will discover that the affairs of the world do not cease the moment the Prime Minister's train draws out of King's Cross Station.

Mr. Jay: But is not my hon. Friend perfectly justified in raising this matter? As the Chief Secretary, whom we are glad to see at the Box at last, is so keen on public economy, will he explore the possibility of Mr. Clore, Mr. Cotton and Sir Hugh Fraser perhaps forming a consortium to defray these expenses and thereby relieve the Exchequer?

Mr. Brooke: I know nothing about the actions or possible actions of those gentlemen. I think it would be a pity if the House were to take the view that the Prime Minister should never visit Scotland except at the expense of the Scots.

India and Burma (Ex-Civil Servants, Compensation)

Mr. Tilney: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many ex-India and ex-Burma civil servants have been asked to return their lump sum compensation by reason of being offered alternative employment by Her Majesty's Government; and how much has so far been claimed back and paid.

Mr. Brooke: Since 1948–49, 109 officers of the Indian and Burman services have been asked to refund for this reason compensation amounting to £196,000. Of this £190,000 has so far been paid.

Mr. Tilney: Is there not a standstill concerning those at present and recently established in the Home Civil Service who have been asked to repay a substantial lump sum, the period of the standstill coming to an end at 31st December? Since my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) hopes to take Parliamentary action, possibly through a Ten-Minute Bill, to rectify what some of us regard as an injustice, will my right hon. Friend consider extending the period of standstill for another three months?

Mr. Brooke: No, Sir; I cannot accept that there has been any injustice here,

nor can I add anything to the very full explanation which was given by my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary in reply to an Adjournment debate on 1st November.

Shipping Industry (Taxation)

Mr. Peyton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total revenue received in taxation from the shipping industry during each of the past six years.

Mr. Barber: The information requested by my hon. Friend is not available but the estimated amounts of tax assessed on the profits of the shipping industry in the six years 1955–56 to 1960–61 are £17 million, £33 million, £45 million, £28 million, £5 million and £4 million respectively. The last figure is provisional.

Mr. Peyton: Those figures—I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend for giving them—must cause profound disappointment to him and to his Department. I do not ask him to anticipate his right hon. and learned Friend's Budget statement, but will he be good enough, when the Budget statement is being framed, to see that consideration is given to the basic fact that shipping is a really international industry and that British shipping cannot compete with the rest of the world's shipping when its fiscal misfortunes over the years are such as to paralyse its competitive power? Does he appreciate that it is vital that the British shipping industry should be put upon the same basis, from the taxation point of view, as the fleets of other countries, and that that alone will increase the tonnage under the British flag?

Mr. Barber: As my hon. Friend knows, the shipping industry already benefits from a favourable rate of investment allowance for new ships. I agree that the shipping industry is facing very considerable problems especially in competition with overseas shipping companies, many of whom operate under flags of convenience, and I assure him that, in the course of the various discussions which precede my hon. and learned Friend's Budget statement, the problems of the shipping industry will be taken into account.

Export Credit Guarantees

Mr. McMaster: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he is taking to discover the current rates of interest being charged in respect of credit facilities and the rates of premium paid on export credit guarantees made available to exporters abroad; what measures Her Majesty's Government intend to take to ensure that British manufacturers and exporters are not placed at a disadvantage in this respect as a result of any lower rate of interest being made available generally to any of our principal overseas competitors; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Barber: We take all reasonable steps to obtain the sort of information to which my hon. Friend refers. With regard to credit facilities in this country, I do not think I can usefully add to the statement which my right hon. and learned Friend made in the House on Monday of this week, 18th December.

Mr. McMaster: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Bank Rate and the corresponding bill discount rate charged in Germany at the current rate is about half of that in this country and that, therefore, exporters of heavy industrial items, particularly ships and such things as paper-making machinery, are at a definite disadvantage because contracts running into many millions of pounds can be very much affected by a difference of interest rate or by a difference of credit guarantee rate of only 2 or 3 per cent.? Will he consider publishing more information about this for the benefit of the House?

Mr. Barber: If there are any particular points which my hon. Friend would like me to answer in the House, I shall be very pleased to consider them. I must remind him that it was only earlier this week that my right hon. and learned Friend said that he thought there was room for improvement in our machinery for the provision of credit. He was, of course, referring there not only to the availability of credit, but also to the terms of credit. I assure my hon. Friend that these are matters among those uppermost in my hon. and learned Friend's mind. The discussions he is at present having have not yet been concluded, but he hopes to be able to say

something to the House as soon as Parliament re-assembles.

Mr. Rhodes: Is the Minister aware that this is one of the most important problems which must be considered by his Department during the next few months? Is he aware that the Japanese economy is now geared to a very high Bank Rate, never less than 10 per cent., which gives an enormous advantage to Japanese exporters when bills are discounted at 2·55 and loans are made to Japanese industry at no higher rate than 4 per cent. for everything in the pipeline for export up to six months? These are very serious disadvantages for exporters in this country. The hon. Gentleman will find those figures in a report compiled by the Federation of British Industries.

Mr. Barber: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says, namely, that rates of interest are of very considerable importance to exporters. Of course, the situation inevitably varies from country to country, and the hon. Gentleman will I know accept the fact, as in fairness he must, that earlier this year we were faced with very considerable balance of payments difficulties. Inevitably, I think, in our present economic situation, we have to face high interest rates.

Commonwealth Relations Office (Examination Papers)

Mr. Berkeley: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT the examination papers which have been required to be answered by Colonial Service officers, wishing to transfer to the Commonwealth Relations Office, during the past five years.

Mr. Brooke: Reprints of examination papers are on sale at Her Majesty's Stationery Office. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of a reprint of one of the sets of examination papers to which he refers.

Nationalised Industries (Finance)

Mr. Millan: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will postpone the operation of the ruling, announced in Command Paper No. 1337 on the financial and economic obligations of the nationalised industries, that nationalised industries shall in future be obliged to


finance a larger proportion of their capital expenditure from internal resources, so far as this involves the nationalised industries in raising their prices to the public.

Mr. Brooke: No, Sir.

Mr. Millan: Whatever the rights and wrongs of this policy, is it not obvious that a major change of policy of this sort can be carried out only if some, or perhaps all, of the nationalised industries raise their prices to the public? Is not this a most inappropriate time for that to happen in view of the Government's policy generally? Why cannot this policy at least be deferred until the pause policy has been stopped?

Mr. Brooke: It is the view of the Government and I think of most people that the nationalised industries should, as far as possible, be conducted according to normal commercial criteria.

Mr. Millan: This means bluntly that the nationalised industries at the moment are being forced to put up their prices. How can the right hon. Gentleman possibly justify that in existing economic circumstances when he is calling upon workers, trade unions, and so on, to exercise restraint? Surely this is the most inappropriate time to do that. Is that not what is happening at the moment, that the nationalised industries are being forced to put up their prices? May we have a clear answer to that question?

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman is implying all the time that the nationalised industries would serve the country better if they were freed from the normal commercial obligations on every private company to do at any rate a substantial part of their capital financing out of their surpluses. Surely that must be right.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that it is very hard for individuals to save at a time or inflation, that the Government seem to find it difficult to do the same and that an undue amount of national saving is being put on the private sector of industry? If more were put on it through the nationalised industries being excused, it would be a quite unreasonable burden for it.

Mr. Brooke: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that the nationalised industries should play their part.

Mr. Callaghan: While I think that there is no dissent from the proposition that all industry should endeavour to finance its capital, at any rate to some extent, from its own savings, that is not the question that the Chief Secretary is being asked. He is being asked whether at this moment, when the Government say that their purpose is to maintain the value of wages and that they wish the pay pause to continue, this change should be made in the financial structure of the nationalised industries which will result in their putting up prices to the public.

Mr. Brooke: The White Paper on the nationalised industries was published in April this year, so that hon. Members have had plenty of time to give attention to it. At present, we are seeking to agree with the nationalised industries what the targets of their financial performance should be. That must be the right way to proceed.

Mr. Callaghan: May I ask the Chief Secretary this one further question: are increases in prices to be made by the nationalised industries during the period of the pay pause arising from this change in their financial arrangements about savings?

Mr. Brooke: The prices and charges made by the nationalised industries are matters for the boards of those industries. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Mental Hospital (Girl)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has studied the report sent to him by the magistrates of a London court, regarding the circumstances under which a 10-year-old girl, instead of being sent to a special school for maladjusted children, was for seven months kept in a mental hospital where she was the only child among 1,200 mentally ill adults; and what reply he has sent.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke): My right hon. Friend


understands that it was not the intention of the magistrates to send him a report, but he has made inquiries. He is informed by the local authority, in whose care this highly disturbed child was, that repeated efforts were made to place her in a hospital catering for children or in a suitable special school. She was accepted for a special school in September but it was about six weeks before a vacancy occurred.

Mr. Dodds: Is not the hon. and learned Member aware that this child was there for seven months? Is it not a disgraceful state of affairs that a child who should go to a school for maladjusted children should be sent to a hospital and be the only child among 1,200 adults? Does not he and his right hon. Friend appreciate the distress of parents when conditions like this exist, particularly when the mother went and found that the child's hair was matted with mashed potato? Surely if the courts take action such as this, is there not some responsibility on the Home Secretary to ensure that proper places are available to which these children may be sent?

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: In fact, the responsibility for the provision of this sort of accommodation is primarily that of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, who is well aware of the difficulties. Efforts were twice made to transfer the girl to a hospital which catered for mentally subnormal children. The girl's parents were opposed to this, however, and the medical authorities felt that it would be unwise to admit her without their consent. She was not considered suitable for the usual type of special school. Three Rudolf Steiner schools which were approached were unable to offer a vacancy, but a fourth did and she is now settling down well there.

Mr. Dodds: Should not there be special schools for cases of this type?

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: We need more special schools, as we need many other institutions.

Mr. Fletcher: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman, in conjunction with the Minister of Health, take steps to ensure that there is no possibility of a recurrence of this kind of incident in

which a young child is sent to a hospital in which all the other inmates are mentally ill adults?

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: The case has, of course, been carefully noted by the Minister of Health, and no doubt what the hon. Gentleman says will be further noted.

Betting Shops (Bookmakers' Runners)

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of the doubts that exist about the need for bookmakers' runners to attend at betting shops after closing to settle the day's transactions, he will instruct the Metropolitan Police not to institute prosecutions in this matter.

The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr. David Renton): The Commissioner of Police is responsible for enforcing the law in the Metropolis and this is not a matter in which it would be proper for my right hon. Friend to intervene.

Mr. Digby: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that there is some misunderstanding among police authorities in this matter, that it is a perfectly reasonable thing for the runners to attend after hours and that this does not constitute a betting transaction in the sense in which it was discussed during the various stages of the Act?

Mr. Renton: There has so far been no prosecution in the Metropolis on this point. In so far as there is a point of law involved, my right hon. Friend has no authority to express an opinion.

Royal Commission on the Police (Report)

Mrs. Butler: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to receive the report of the Royal Commission on the Police.

Mr. Renton: I understand that the Royal Commission hopes to present its final report next spring.

Mrs. Butler: Can the Minister of State say whether the Royal Commission has any intention of producing an interim report on police behaviour in Trafalgar Square on 17th September? If so, can he say when it is likely to be published?

Mr. Renton: As my right hon. Friend informed the House on 9th November, arrangements have been made for the experience gained in the handling of these cases to be put before the Royal Commission, but it is for the Royal Commission to decide whether or not to submit an interim report.

Remand Centres

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether one of the eight new remand centres will be definitely identified with Cornwall.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Males under 21 from courts in Cornwall will be received at Exeter Remand Centre and females in a wing of Pucklechurch Remand Centre near Bristol.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: That Answer will give great satisfaction to the authorities in Cornwall, who have been working under great difficulty, because most of the people who have been remanded have had to go to Bristol and even further afield than that.

Detention Centres

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether one of the seven new detention centres will be definitely identified with Cornwall.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: A senior detention centre for the South and West is being built at Haslar, Hampshire. A site for a junior detention centre is under consideration.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Will my hon. and learned Friend bear in mind the needs of Cornwall and Devon in this matter, and will he try to ensure that the deten-

tion centre which is under consideration is placed in the West Country?

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Yes, Sir.

Toy Guns

Commander Kerans: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will take steps to prevent the sale of toy guns which bear actual resemblance in all details to the real weapon in view of the fact that they are an added incentive to crime, especially to youth.

Mr. Renton: I doubt whether legislation on the lines suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend would be practicable. The use of an imitation firearm in connection with serious offences such as housebreaking or robbery already attracts the same penalty as the use of a real weapon.

Commander Kerans: Would my hon. and learned Friend agree that these weapons are perfect in design, that they are quite cheap and that in the hands of youngsters and irresponsible youths, since they can be obtained so easily, they constitute one more thing which increases crime in this country?

Mr. Renton: To pass a law stating that no toy resembling a gun should be sold would be to ban toy guns altogether. We feel that it would be quite impracticable to define the point at which a toy ceases to resemble the real thing. However, I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that under the Firearms Act, 1937, the use of a firearm or an imitation firearm attracts the same penalty.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Redmayne.]

AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT, SOUTHALL

12 noon.

Mr. G. A. Pargiter: I am grateful for this opportunity to bring before the House the subject matter of my Motion of censure on the Attorney-General, which has been on the Order Paper since the beginning of the Session.
[That this House deeply deplores the failure of the Attorney-General to institute proceedings for breaches of the Air Navigation Order and Regulations following the Southall air disaster on the 2nd September, 1958, as a result of which 7 people lost their lives; draws attention to the fact that clear and documented evidence of overloading was submitted to the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation on 11th October, 1958, and the Director of Public Prosecutions on 30th October, 1958, and at the same time attention was drawn to two other serious breaches which required investigation; requests Her Majesty's Government to make available to the House the whole of the documents relative to this case either in the Department of Public Prosecutions or the Ministry of Aviation, then the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, including any correspondence that may have been written by Members of Parliament and replies thereto; and further regrets that the Attorney-General allowed inaccurate information to be given to the House on 14th July, 1959, which remained uncorrected until the Attorney-General's reply to a question from the honourable Member for Southall on 5th June. 1961.]
I appreciate that the demands on Parliamentary time have not yet permitted ibis Motion to be debated in the ordinary way, with the possibility of a vote at the end of it, and I can only express the hope that the matter will now be satisfactorily disposed of so that my Motion may be withdrawn.
First, having regard to the time that has elapsed, it would be desirable to establish the facts. A Viking aircraft, belonging to Independent Air Travel, Ltd., crashed at Southall with the loss of seven lives about 7.50 a.m. on Tuesday, 2nd September, 1958. The then Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation agreed that an investigation should

be made with a view to proceedings being taken against Independent Air Travel in advance of the public inquiry on the limited issue of whether the aircraft was improperly loaded.
Detective Superintendent G. M. Manifold reported on 11th October, 1958, that there was a prima facie case against Independent Air Travel, Ltd., in that the company
On the 2nd day of September, 1958, at London Airport, in the County of Middlesex, were the operators of a British registered aircraft. G-AIJE, which was in default under the Air Navigation Order, 1954, in that it flew when the conditions on which the certificate of airworthiness was issued were not duly complied with, that is to say, it flew at a weight in excess of the maximum weight authorised in the said certificate of airworthiness, contrary to Articles 11 (1, b) and 67 of the Air Navigation Order, 1954.
That report was very fully documented—I want that most clearly to be stated—and indicated that the aircraft was appreciably overloaded by 919 lb.
The report was important in so far as it went on also to draw attention to two things that were not the subject matter of the instruction to the officer in question. He said:
The repair to the engine fault which developed at London Airport on 1st September, 1958, on G-AIJE was not effected or supervised by an engineer holding the necessary certificate, and it may well be that no entry appears in the maintenance log of the aircraft
The second point, (b), was that
The first officer, one Gerrit Hendrick Altena, may not be considered to possess the requisite qualifications to occupy the position of first Officer on aircraft G-AIJE.
The then Minister of Transport, in a debate on 20th July, 1959, had this to say, and it is important because it figures largely in my case:
… the company was inspected for an eighth time on 26th August—just before the accident"—
that was, in 1958.
This is very important. This inspection revealed prima facie evidence of infringement of flight-time regulations. Therefore, approval for the company to operate scheduled services was at once withdrawn, and the company was taken off the Department's Fair List of operators suitable for enjoying Government contracts. The accident intervened, but the evidence collected at that inspection was at once sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Investigation into these infringements was overtaken by the very much graver issues suggested by the preliminary investigation, as I have said, into the cause of the accident


because, as is well known—and as has been mentioned in a newspaper today, quite improperly—there is no doubt that the initial inspection by the police and by other investigating officers showed at least a suspicion that this aircraft was seriously overloaded.
It was on that basis, as I say, that I instructed the Ministry to do everything it possibly could, with my full knowledge and support, to concentrate its efforts on investigating these possibilities. This investigation was started as soon as possible and, to answer the hon. Member for Uxbridge, we asked the coroner—and I have no complaints to make about the coroner—to adjourn his inquest for a time in case a charge of manslaughter should be preferred.
The fact that, in the end, a charge was not so brought is not, of course, a matter for me or the Ministry, as the Committee understands. The reason for the adjournment was so that the prosecuting authority, the Director of Public Prosecutions, could satisfy himself whether a major charge, such as manslaughter, might not be preferred. When it was found that there was not sufficient evidence, the coroner was asked to resume the inquest. That is not a matter which the Ministry could decide.
It was the Ministry's duty"—
and this is important—
to provide every shred of evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions. That it did. I do not think that it is right for me to express a view whether the decision was right or wrong. All on which I have to satisfy the Committee is that the Ministry gave full evidence to the Director on which he could base his judgment. That, I think, I have shown very clearly was done.
However, even after that there still remained the possible grave charge of overloading. This could not be taken up until the inquest had been concluded, because the coroner's verdict itself might have led to a charge of manslaughter. Therefore, the next step of the Ministry was to co-operate with the coroner to see that he got all the help that he needed to go ahead with his inquest. Mr. Justice Phillimore said that it took a considerable time to complete. I agree with that. That is not, of course, a matter for me.
The story of events now goes on to the inquest which, as the Committee knows, in the end returned an open verdict, a matter not within the control of the Ministry or any Department of State, Coroners and coroners' courts are a law unto themselves. When the inquest finished counsel was again asked whether the evidence about overloading which emerged during the course of the inquest would justify the bringing of a charge. He advised that it would not. Thus the two major counts failed not through any inactivity of the Ministry, but because there was judged to be insufficient evidence to justify legal proceedings. That was certainly not a matter for me.
Unfortunately, during all that time little work could be done on one or two minor infringements which stood over.

I emphasise the words "one or two minor infringements".
As the result of the very long time taken by the inquest—I am not blaming anyone for that, but it took a very long time, as Mr. Justice Phillimore said—there were only four weeks left at the end of that period when any action could be taken. It may be thought that even then we should have taken proceedings on a minor charge. I will explain to the Committee why we did not. Had we proceeded on a minor charge, and had the company put in a notice of appeal, the public inquiry could have been held up indefinitely.
I take full responsibility for this decision. I considered at this stage that as we had failed in any major charge the public interest was best served by having the public inquiry as quickly as possible as the only means left to us to bring out the facts of the case. Indeed, I was pressed by both sides of the House to do it. I take the full responsibility for deciding at that stage that rather than proceed with a minor charge, which could have led to indefinite delay, we should proceed forthwith with this inquiry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1959; Vol. 609, c. 693–5.]
With regard to those major and minor charges, it is of interest to see what Mr. Justice Phillimore had to say, because he reported on 27th May, 1959, in answer to specific questions put to him by the then Attorney-General. Question 3 (b) was:
Had the aircraft been maintained in accordance with approved maintenance schedules as regards the engine?
The reply was:
No. I doubt whether the maintenance carried out at Blackbushe in the course of the morning of 1st September, 1958, was properly carried out. I am satisfied that the work performed at London Airport was carried out in disregard of the terms of the approved maintenance schedules by men who were not qualified to perform it and who were not licensed to certify it.
Let it be observed that this bears out very fully what had been said in a preliminary report from Detective Superintendent Manifold.
I refer also to Question 4:
Was the aircraft properly loaded?
to which the reply was:
No. There was a clear and deliberate breach of Regulation 33 of the Air Navigation (General) Regulations, 1954.
Question 5 was:
Were the pilots properly licensed and experienced to carry out the flight?
The reply to part (b) of that was:
Altena was properly licensed, but was not properly experienced. His competence had not been established by the Company, who


were accordingly in breach of Regulation 44 of the Air Navigation (General) Regulations.
There were the three points which had been put and which must have been in the knowledge of the Attorney-General immediately after this crash.
On 14th July, 1959, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) asked the Attorney-General
what consideration he has given to instituting criminal proceedings against the former directors of Independent Air Travel Limited
and the then Solicitor-General replied:
None. The time for instituting proceedings for offences against the Air Navigation Order and Regulations expired on 2nd March, 1959. No evidence that would justify a prosecution for offences against the Orders or Regulations was submitted to my right hon. and learned Friend by that date; and no evidence that would justify a prosecution for any other offence has been submitted to him at any time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th July, 1959: Vol. 609, c. 181–2.]
Those are important words.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman went on, in reply to a supplementary question, to what, I think, is the nub of the matter. He said:
I am not saying—I hope the House would not think I was saying—that there was at any material time before my right hon. and learned Friend evidence of any lesser offence than manslaughter here committed. I concede that there are now disclosed by the investigation offences against the Regulations, but, as I have explained, there is a statutory period of limitation already past in respect of this."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th July, 1959; Vol. 609, c. 182.]
That is rather important.

Mr. Ellis Smith: What was the date of that?

Mr. Pargiter: It was 14th July, 1959.
We come a little more up to date. On Sunday, 30th April this year my attention was drawn to a report in the Sunday Express to the effect that a Mr. Frederick Beezley, a former legal assistant in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions at the time of the official inquiry into the Southall air disaster, had resigned his post to join Captain Kozubski, at Falcon Airways Limited. The report went on to say that Captain Kozubski was chairman of Independent Air Travel, the firm that owned the Viking aircraft Juliet Echo which crashed at Southall in September, 1958. According to this report, Mr. Beezley then said:
I first met Captain Kozubski about three years ago. It is a purely personal matter

why I joined him. Let me make it perfectly clear that any discussions I have had with Captain Kozubski were merely as a friend whose opinions he might have sought from time to time.
Mr. Beezley said that these were opinions based on his legal training.
Of course, one cannot question friendships. They run in various ways. There are friendships between Members on the two sides of the House. But it is an extraordinary position that a man known to be a persistent breaker of the law should have a friend in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
On 4th May, 1961, I wrote to the Minister of Aviation as follows, and I think it is important that I should repeat here what I said:
Amongst your records somewhere you will, of course, have the history of the Southall air disaster in September, 1958. You will probably note from these records that Captain Kozubski does not appear in too good a light. A great deal of money, including public money, was lost as a result of his activities and it is interesting to find in the first instance that he is now responsible for the running of another private airline, and even more interesting to find someone from the Director of Public Prosecutions office, previously concerned in aircraft matters, joining the board of this company. It is particularly interesting because your records will probably show that I was very much concerned at the delay either in your Department or in the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions in taking action against this company for its infringements of the law until the prosecution would, in fact, have been out of time. An attempt was made to gloss this over, but, certainly, no satisfactory answer was given. It may, of course, be only a coincidence that this company got away with things, they should not be allowed to get away with and that Mr. Beezley has now joined the board of another company under the direction of the same man and for that reason, at this stage, I do not propose to put down a Question.
I had a reply on 12th May from the Minister in which he thanked me for my letter of 4th May and said:
I regard this as an important matter and I am going into it in some detail. Perhaps you would give me a little time to do this. I will then get in touch with you".
On 5th June, 1961, I put a Question to the Attorney-General. I want to make it perfectly clear that I had to put it in this form because of the Table's requirements, which were that it should be in a specific form. Personally, I should have preferred to have put it a little less specifically. I asked the


Attorney-General whether he was
aware that Mr. Frederick Beezley, who, whilst an officer of his Department, was concerned in the investigation of the alleged infringements of the air safety regulations by Independent Air Travel Limited, and was responsible for a deliberate delay in the investigations in order to make it impossible to take legal action against the company, is now a director of Falcon Airways Limited of which the managing director is the same man who was managing director of Independent Airway Travel Limited at the time of the inquiry; and if he will now refer the activities of Mr. Beezley in this matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions with a view to the institution of proceedings against him.
The Attorney-General replied:
No. The hon. Member has made a very serious allegation against Mr. Beezley, but he has produced no evidence to support it and I am satisfied that it is in fact completely without foundation. Mr. Beezley has never been an officer of my Department; at the material time he was on the staff of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but he was not concerned at any stage with the investigation of the alleged infringements of the air safety regulations by Independent Air Travel Limited and he was not responsible in any way for the manner in which those investigations were carried out. There was in fact no delay in carrying out the investigations, which, as was made clear during the debate in this House on 20th July, 1959, were completed in time to permit the institution of criminal proceedings if that course had been thought desirable in the public interest."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th June, 1961; Vol. 641, c. 62.]
I put another Question the same day to the Minister of Aviation asking him whether he was aware
that delays in investigations prevented legal proceedings from being taken in the case of the Southall air disaster; and if he will ensure that no similar delays occur in the investigations now being carried out by his Department into the alleged infringement of air safety regulations by Falcon Airways.
The reply was:
No. The investigations by my Department following the Southall air disaster did not prevent decisions being taken whether or not to institute legal proceedings. These decisions were taken on the facts disclosed and proceedings would have been instituted if it had been thought necessary or desirable in the public interest. The investigations were conducted with all proper speed and determination on this as on other occasions, and will be so conducted on any future occasions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 5th June, 1961; Vol. 641, c. 49.]
I have a letter from the right hon. Gentleman in which he stated that he had not replied to my previous letter because he thought that it was wise to wait for the Questions. I need not now go into that.
It was as a result of those Questions that I was able to obtain the earlier evidence in connection with the air crash, which I have now produced, and I also have good reason to believe from what I learned further about this time that the officer at that time—and I can say this very deliberately—in charge of the investigations into the alleged offences by Independent Air Travel Ltd. other than the overloading of the aircraft was in contact during these investigations with Mr. Frederick Beezley, and, also, that he was dissatisfied with the assistance which he received.
In subsequent correspondence, the Attorney-General indicated that he personally was responsible for the decision not to prosecute the company for the overloading offences. This decision was taken on 3rd February, 1959. It is rather a long time from October to the 3rd February, but, nevertheless, still ample time in which to take proceedings. The letter of 2nd August, 1961, went on to state:
For reasons which the then Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation gave in the House during the debate on the 20th July, 1959, the evidence relating to the other two offences mentioned in the report was not considered by the Director of Public Prosecutions or by Treasury Counsel or by me. The decision not to pursue those two matters was taken by the Minister within the statutory time limit.
Let us recall what those two offences were—an engine had been improperly repaired and an officer was not properly qualified. Detective Superintendent Manifold had reported on these offences as being very serious breaches of the Air Navigation Regulations, and as being undoubtedly contributory causes of this disaster. Any one of these three items might of itself not have been significant. The aircraft might have got away on one engine if it had not been overloaded. The engine might not have failed if it had been properly repaired. The aircraft might not have been so badly off course if the officer concerned had been properly qualified: It is the accumulation of events on which I want to concentrate.
Despite all this, I gather that they were not the subject of an inquiry from the Attorney-General as to what investigations had taken place with regard to them, either in the Director of Public Prosecution's Office or the Ministry of


Transport and Civil Aviation. He had before him a document which indicated not only a report which was absolutely cast-iron on the question of overloading—which, when weighed with other pieces of evidence, required a prosecution—but at the same time, there was a report on these two other serious offences. Yet apparently these were not considered by the Director of Public Prosecutions at all, nor by the Attorney-General.
I have just quoted a statement by the then Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation that he regarded these breaches as minor offences. If they were minor offences, what are major offences? I have referred to the breaches—the repairs to the engine and the question of the first officer. It can be said of any offence that if one breaks it down into its constituent parts, each piece may be so small that it is a minor offence. But it is when one has a continuation of events, and ties them together, that one realises the seriousness of the situation. Yet we have had a statement that one item only was considered, that of overloading.
All these offences were not considered together. Does the Attorney-General seriously say that, if he had considered these items together within the statutory time limit, a prosecution on all counts would have failed? That has never been said. The only report we have had is by an eminent judge, who said that there was evidence, on all these points, of guilt on the part of this company.
I would like to know, although I do not suppose that I will get an answer, what correspondence passed and what discussions took place between some hon. Members and the then Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation at that time, and whether this had any bearing on the decision of the Minister not to forward such evidence in his possession to the Director of Public Prosecutions at the same time as the Director was considering the question of overloading. I would like to know, specifically, whether the Attorney-General denies that he knew what the then Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation was doing. Does he deny, also, that he knew that the officer investigating these other offences was in contact with Mr. Beezley in the Director of Public Prosecution's Office?
Only a very full inquiry, with all those concerned being released—and this is the nub of the matter—from the Official Secrets Act, can satisfactorily establish the truth, because what I have reason to believe to be true cannot be established unless people are in a position to speak freely. The House might wish to know why I am not prepared to let sleeping dogs lie. I believe that a very grave responsibility rests on both the Attorney-General and the then Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation for permitting this state of affairs to go on. I am further concerned—and this is equally important—that, although both Ministers did not feel inclined to prosecute, the evidence of the causes of the accident was sufficiently powerful for the insurance companies to repudiate their liabilities and rest on making ex gratia payments to the unfortunate victims.
Whatever I may or may not have done in the presentation of this case, I hope that it will at least have made the House realise that there is an urgent need for aircraft companies to be obliged to take out third party insurance cover in the same way as motorists. At present, although they must be able to show to the Minister, in order to get permission to run services, that they have adequate qualifications in the form of insurance cover, if we take this case as a precedent, the insurance companies may repudiate their liabilities if any of the Air Navigation Regulations are infringed. It is really time that the same sort of cover which applies to motor cars applied also to aircraft companies so that the unfortunate victims may not be deprived of their proper compensation.

12.27 p.m.

The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): As time is short and I want to say a great deal, I had better reply now. The hon. Gentleman notified me by letter, dated last Tuesday, that he was raising today the question of the Southall air crash which took place on 2nd September, 1958, more than three years ago. He gave me no indication of the points he proposed to raise, but has taken the opportunity today to make a number of allegations of a serious character—allegations that he


has made before and which have been answered more than once.
The preliminary investigation of the Inspector of Accidents indicated that serious overloading might have been an effective cause of the accident. The then Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation consequently instructed the Civil Aviation Constabulary to investigate. A report of the investigation was sent to the Chief Constable on 11th October, 1958, about six weeks after the accident. The papers were submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions on 30th October, 1958, and on 20th November following they were sent by him to senior Treasury counsel for his opinion on whether there was sufficient evidence to justify the institution of criminal proceedings for overloading.
The hon. Member has thought fit to table a Motion of censure on me for failing to institute criminal proceedings. I am fortunate in that I can reply to his attacks, but, as I shall show, he has grossly slandered someone who cannot reply, and I shall refer to that later. In his Motion, the hon. Member alleges that clear and documented evidence was submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and today he asserts that there was a cast-iron case on the question of overloading.
I can assure the House that all the material that was sent to the Director was put before senior Treasury counsel for his opinion. At that time the inquest had started. The courts have laid it down that where there is a possibility of a jury returning a verdict of manslaughter, and the possibility of the jury doing that in this case could not be ignored, prosecuting authorities should not institute charges of lesser offences before the inquest is concluded. The inquest ended on 29th January, and on 3rd February Treasury counsel, having considered all the material put before him and what emerged at the inquest, advised against a prosecution. He reached the conclusion that, far from there being "clear and documented evidence of overloading", there were a number of uncertainties in the evidence which cast considerable doubt on the reliability of the evidence as a whole.
Having regard to these uncertainties and to the fact that even an excess

weight of 710 lb. would have been only 2 per cent. in excess of the regulated weight and could not have contributed to the aircraft crashing, he did not advise a prosecution. That was his opinion, independently arrived at. On the same day, the papers were submitted to me. The Director of Public Prosecutions agreed with the opinion expressed by senior Treasury counsel. I considered the matter independently and I approved the Director's decision. I am dealing first with the question of overloading, which, of course, was much the most serious matter. I will deal with the other charges—

Mr. Pargiter: Will the Attorney-General explain—

The Attorney-General: I will not give way. I will cover the whole field. I did not interrupt the hon. Member. I will cover the whole matter. I am glad to have this opportunity of doing so.
As I said, I approved the decision of the Director of Prosecutions not to prosecute for overloading, and that was the only question which was submitted to me for my consideration at that time. I think that I should tell the House, as shortly as I can, what were the uncertainties which led to Treasury counsel forming that opinion and my confirming it, and the Director of Public Prosecutions. As the document which the hon. Member has shows, the whole case for the charge of overloading depended upon the amount of petrol on board this aircraft when it left London Airport. There was evidence that 444 gallons were put on board at London Airport and two witnesses, speaking from memory—and I emphasise that—said that there were 230 gallons on board when it left Blackbushe for London Airport. There was no written record of that.
From that total there had to be deducted the amount used for taxi-ing and power checks at Blackbushe and London Airport, and in engine testing after repairs had been carried out at London Airport. These amounts of petrol consumption had to be estimated on what was assumed to have taken place. But the evidence of what was on board at Blackbushe did not fit in with the evidence of the man who put on the petrol at London Airport. He said that the rear tanks of the plane were empty


at London Airport, in which case what was left over of the petrol on board at Blackbushe must have been in the front tanks.
The expert estimated that 85 gallons would be used in flying to London Airport. If that was so, the rear tanks being empty, 145 gallons at least would be in the front tanks. Those tanks hold 360 gallons and, therefore, on that basis there would be room to put only 215 gallons into the front tanks, but the man who loaded at London Airport said that he put in 264 gallons. If he did that, and there is no reason to doubt his evidence, either there must have been at least 49 gallons fewer on board on leaving Blackbushe, or 49 gallons more were used before the aircraft got to London Airport, in which case there was a large error in the expert's estimate. That expert has, in fact, given four different estimates of the amount of the overloading. The hon. Member gave one figure in his speech—919 lb. The expert's view at the inquest was that it was 710 lb., the weight of 100 gallons of petrol.
If the witness who put on the petrol at London Airport was right, it follows that that estimate would have to be cut by nearly 50 per cent. to the weight of 50 gallons, and the case for overloading by 50 gallons would depend entirely on the accuracy of the recollection of the witnesses at Blackbushe. In these circumstances I felt no doubt, and still feel no doubt, that a charge of overloading could not be proved in a court of law with that certainty that the law of this country demands in relation to criminal proceedings.
I would point out that when I reached that decision there was still a month to go before the time expired for instituting a prosecution for overloading. It is really nonsense to suggest, as the hon. Member has suggested, that the investigation was so long delayed as to make prosecution for this offence impossible.
The next stage in this ancient story was the publication of the Report of the public inquiry. That expressed the view that offences had been committed against the Air Navigation Order and Regulations and that the aircraft was overloaded when it took off. It also expressed the view, and I remind the hon. Member of this because it is quite contrary to the view he expressed in his

speech, that any overloading that there might have been made no contribution of any kind to the accident.

Mr. Pargiter: It is still an offence.

The Attorney-General: That was what the Report of the public inquiry stated and, despite that statement of which he was fully aware, the hon. Member has the temerity to say in the House that the aeroplane might have avoided the crash and got away if it had not been overloaded. That is flying in the face of the Report of the public inquiry.

Mr. Pargiter: It was an offence.

The Attorney-General: Overloading is an offence but, of course, any offence has to be proved. One cannot go along and say that overloading is an offence and ask for a conviction. One must have the evidence. I have told the hon. Member now, and I hope that at last he will be able to appreciate it, that this matter was seriously considered at an early stage by the Director of Public Prosecutions, by senior Treasury counsel and myself independently and we came to the conclusion that a prosecution would not succeed.
What I am saying to the hon. Member and what I ask him to face is that he really had no right to say, in the course of his speech, that this aeroplane might have got away if it had not been overloaded, in the face of the finding of the public inquiry that any overloading that there may have been made no contribution of any kind to the accident. This is surely an indication of the hon. Member's total irresponsibility.

Mr. Pargiter: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should not try to bully me. He should give his explanation. I do not take any bullying.

The Attorney-General: The House will appreciate that it is one thing to arrive at a conclusion after investigation and another to establish a criminal charge on admissible evidence beyond reasonable doubt, and I remain of the opinion that I, together with the senior Treasury counsel and the Director of Public Prosecutions, formed as to that.
The next thing that happened was that on 14th July, 1959, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin), who I am glad to see here, put down


a Question which was answered by the then Solicitor-General. The Solicitor-General said, in reply:
The time for instituting proceedings for offences against the Air Navigation Order and Regulations expired on 2nd March, 1959. No evidence that would justify a prosecution for offences against the Order or Regulations was submitted to my right hon. and learned Friend by that date; and no evidence that would justify a prosecution for any other offence has been submitted to him at any time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th July, 1959, Vol. 609, c. 182.]
That was a perfectly true and accurate statement. He answered a supplementary question, to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, and I know, and have known for some time, that the hon. Gentleman has sought to base some of his allegations on a misinterpretation of that supplementary answer. I will deal with that later.
A few days later, on 20th July, 1959, the whole matter was debated in Supply. My right hon. Friend the then Minister of Transport gave a very full and complete account of what had happened. He made it clear that all the evidence with regard to overloading had been submitted to the Director and that he, the Minister, had decided not to prosecute on a minor charge for that would have delayed the holding of a public inquiry, and the hon. Gentleman read the passage from my right hon. Friend's speech where he had referred to one or two minor infringements.

Mr. Pargiter: What were the minor offences?

The Attorney-General: The two to which the hon. Gentleman referred in his opening speech, about repairs, and Mr. Altena, and I will come to those.
From July, 1959, I can move to 31st May of this year. On that day the Daily Mail published, with banner headlines, a story of a Question tabled, it said, by the hon. Gentleman to me for Written Answer, and that story was published after the hon. Gentleman, as he said, had written to the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation about this matter on 12th May and before receiving any reply. In fact, on that day no Question by the hon. Gentleman appeared on the Order Paper. A little later one did, somewhat different from

that published in the Daily Mail, and I should like to remind the House of the content of that Question.
It was to ask me whether I was aware that Mr. Frederick Beezley, who, whilst an officer of my Department was
concerned in the investigation of the alleged infringements of the air safety regulations by Independent Air Travel Limited, and was responsible for a deliberate delay in the investigations in order to make it impossible to take legal action against the company, is now a director of Falcon Airways Limited of which the managing director is the same man who was managing director of Independent Air Travel Limited at the time of the inquiry; and if he will now refer the activities of Mr. Beezley in this matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions with a view to the institution of proceedings against him.
I should like to remind the House of my reply. My Answer was:
No. The hon. Member has made a very serious allegation against Mr. Beezley, but he has produced no evidence to support it and I am satisfied that it is in fact completely without foundation. Mr. Beezley has never been an officer of my Department; at the material time he was on the staff of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but he was not concerned at any stage with the investigation of the alleged infringements of the air safety regulations by Independent Air Travel Limited and he was not responsible in any way for the manner in which those investigations were carried out. There was, in fact, no delay in carrying out the investigations, which, as was made clear during the debate in this House on 20th July, 1959, were completed in time to permit the institution of criminal proceedings if that course had been thought desirable in the public interest."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th June, 1961, Vol. 641, c. 62.]
These allegations in respect of the conduct of a civil servant were of the gravest character. They were made under cover of Parliamentary privilege. Mr. Beezley, therefore, could not clear his character by action in the courts.
The hon. Gentleman was away from this country when the Question was answered. On his return, he did not, as one would expect any Member to do, take the earliest opportunity of withdrawing his wholly unfounded allegation. Instead, he made the following statement:
Arising from my Question of 5th June in regard to Mr. Frederick Beezley, and the Written Answer to it by the Attorney-General, and the subsequent allegations made in the House on 7th June that I had made false and unjustifiable accusations against Mr. Beezley, who, at the material time, was employed in the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions, I wish to say that on the evidence available to me I am satisfied that I had good


reason to put down this Question and I did so in complete good faith.
I am prepared to submit to the Attorney-General further material available to me.
I did not receive this "further material" until I had written and asked for it. I wrote to the hon. Gentleman in these terms:
As you have not seen fit to withdraw any of the allegations contained in your Parliamentary Question of 5th June, I assume that you will now send me the evidence upon which they were based.
Five days later the hon. Gentleman sent me a photostat copy of the confidential police report of 11th October, to which he referred, and which had been considered by Treasury counsel before he reached his decision to advise no prosecution for overloading. That was one document. The second item was an extract from the direction given to the inquest jury by the coroner, in which the coroner expressed the view that breaches of the regulations had occurred. The third item which the hon. Gentleman sent me was a copy of the Answers given by the then Solicitor-General to the Question asked by the hon. Member for Govan on 14th July, 1959, and his answer to a supplementary question.
There was nothing to suggest that Mr. Beezley was an officer of my Department, nothing to suggest that he was in any way concerned in the investigation of the Southall air crash, and nothing to suggest that he was responsible for any delay in those investigations. I have three times pointed this out to the hon. Gentleman in correspondence, and I informed the House of this in Answer to a Question tabled by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson), and still the hon. Gentleman has not withdrawn his allegations against Mr. Beezley. He has not even had the decency to apologise to Mr. Beezley for the grievous injury that he has inflicted on him. Indeed, today he sought to put forward another allegation which, again, he has not produced any evidence to support.

Mr. Pargiter: The same one.

The Attorney-General: Not the same one, as I shall show.
It is owing to the hon. Gentleman's use—perhaps one should say abuse—of Parliamentary privilege that Mr. Beezley

has no redress. We in this House enjoy great privileges, and it is, I suggest, a serious matter, and one with which this House might well concern itself, for a Member to make grave allegations against someone outside the House without a shred of evidence to support them, and to persist in them even when he is told that they are wholly unfounded.
I do not know how the hon. Gentleman came into possession of the confidential police report which he sent me and from which he quoted today. It is a curious feature of this business that the Daily Mail reported that he tabled a Question to me attacking Mr. Beezley before any such Question appeared on the Order Paper, and that the Daily Mail, on 20th July, 1959, published an article quoting parts of this confidential police report on the morning of the debate in Committee of Supply. Perhaps it lies in the hon. Gentleman's power to explain how this happened.
The hon. Gentleman has sought to infer from an answer given by the then Solicitor-General to a supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Govan that evidence relating to the alleged offences was never submitted for consideration before the time for starting prosecutions had expired. He has been repeatedly told that this was not so, as the facts that I have stated show, and now he seeks to censure me for allowing inaccurate information to be given to the House by the Solicitor-General on 14th July, 1959. In fact, I was not in the country at the time. In fact, the answer was not inaccurate. As I told him in my letter dated 26th July:
The evidence relating to one alleged offence"—
that was the overloading—
was submitted to me and the evidence relating to the other offences to the Minister of Transport, in each case within the statutory time limit.
The Minister made the position perfectly clear in his speech—to which the hon. Member referred—in the debate on 20th July.
Let me now turn to the terms of the hon. Member's Motion. First, he invites the House to deplore my failure to institute criminal proceedings. I have dealt with that. Then he asserts, as he


did in his speech, that clear and documented evidence of overloading was submitted in 1958. I have dealt with that. He then asserts that, at the same time, attention was drawn to two other serious breaches which required investigation. As I have told the House, the Minister—for the reasons he gave in 1959—decided not to pursue these allegations. I hope that the hon. Member appreciates that the Minister's decision not to pursue those other matters was made because they were of a minor character and because of the delay that would ensue in the holding of a public inquiry for which the hon. Member and others were pressing.
In fact, those charges were of an extremely trivial nature. The evidence of one was unsatisfactory, and neither was likely to lead to more than a nominal penalty if a conviction had been obtained. There was no ground for supposing that the repairs—even if they had been carried out by an engineer not holding the necessary certificate—were improperly done. There was no ground for supposing that any action on the part of Mr. Altena—who, unfortunately, met his death in the accident—in any way contributed to that accident.
If those charges, which were of a minor character, certainly compared with the overloading charge, had been pursued by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation—and I emphasise that these charges were for him to consider; they never came to me, and they did not fall within my province, whereas the question of overloading and manslaughter in different categories did—they would have delayed the holding of a public inquiry, as my right hon. Friend explained so long ago as 20th July, 1959. I agree with him in thinking that a prosecution for these minor offences would not have served any useful purpose.
The hon. Member's Motion then requests the Government to make available to the House all the documents relating to the case, including correspondence between Members of Parliament and the Ministers concerned. If the hon. Member wishes to publish his correspondence with me I have not the least objection, provided that he publishes my replies. The only other rele-

vant documents, apart from those published before the public inquiry, are the papers submitted to the Treasury counsel and the opinion he gave on them, and it is not the practice to disclose facts relating to criminal investigations where no proceedings are instituted—for reasons which I hope are obvious. These documents are confidential, and I do not propose to follow the hon. Member's example in giving publicity to confidential documents. He will scarcely expect me to show them to him in confidence.
Finally, the hon. Member's Motion regrets that I allowed inaccurate information to be given to the House on 14th July, 1959, which remained uncorrected until the Answer I gave him on 5th June this year. In fact, the Answer that I gave on 5th June corrected nothing except the unfounded allegations made by the hon. Member against Mr. Beezley.

Mr. Pargiter: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to read that Answer?

The Attorney-General: I read it in the course of my speech, and I invite the hon. Member to read it again.

Mr. Pargiter: I did read it.

The Attorney-General: I invite the hon. Member to read it until he understands it. It is a perfectly clear Answer. He has also had this point dealt with by correspondence, and I will not take up the time of the House by reading it again.
My right hon. Friend's speech on 20th July, 1959, removed any misconception that could possibly have arisen out of the replies given to the House by the Solicitor-General on 14th July, 1959. The hon. Member has charged me with making a wrong decision and with misleading the House. I have not misled the House, and I am confident that my decision was right.
I have now answered the charges that the hon. Member has thought fit to prefer against me. There is no more foundation for them than there was for his charges against Mr. Beezley. I do not believe that there is anything I can say which will convince the hon. Member of the error of his ways. As he has not withdrawn his charges against Mr. Beezley—wholly unfounded as they were—it is perhaps expecting too much to


expect him now to withdraw his Motion of censure against me. I hope, however, that this debate will serve one useful purpose, in ensuring that no further credence will be given to charges made by the hon. Member under the shelter of Parliamentary privilege.

EX-OVERSEAS CIVIL SERVANTS (PENSIONS)

12.58 p.m.

Mr. John Tilney: We are proud of our colonial record—or perhaps I should say, in these days of so many independent States, of our ex-colonial record. We boast that we have done better in the colonial field than any other nation. I am, therefore, grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to draw attention once again to the sorry state of some of those who have made that colonial record possible.
We live in the day of the pay pause. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House pay frequent lip-service to the need to save money, but when their own pet projects come along they find some excuse for asking the Government to spend more money. I hope, however, to show the Financial Secretary that no extra money on overseas expenditure is needed if he will only listen to my argument.
In any case, it does not remove from us the moral duty to see that those of our citizens who have served the Crown well in days gone by are properly looked after. From colonial development and welfare funds we gave sums amounting to over £20 million last year. Each year, by way of inducement pay, educational allowances and other emoluments we are giving to the overseas civil servants in many territories about £12½ million. The Colonial and Development Welfare Act, 1959, provides for Government-to-Government loans, under which we are able to lend £25 million per annum. Perhaps the Financial Secretary will tell us whether any such money has been lent, or is in the pipeline.
Despite the pay pause, these are very big figures. But there are other kinds of figures—figures who have been responsible for law and order in parts of the Commonwealth where law and order did not always exist—figures who have taught technical skills and have administered vast areas. It is true that

they had a little pomp and ceremony about them, but they have done a fine job without corruption and without personal gain, other than their salary and an occasional C.M.G. or K.C.M.G. thrown in.
These people are now living in retirement, and many of them are counting every shilling. In some cases they have been forced to apply for National Assistance, but in others they are too proud to ask. Some of them must be asking how we, as a nation, can afford some of the great gifts which I have already mentioned. Many, I fear, wish that they had never left these shores. I agree that, in effect, they were probably paid more than if they had remained in the United Kingdom. But one has to remember that the period of their employment, in the 1920s and the 1930s, most of them worked in the tropics.
They worked there before the days of mepacrin and paludrin for malaria; before the days of easy refrigeration, with refrigerators run on calor gas or something of that kind, enabling cold drinks to be made available; before the days when children could be educated and brought up in those territories, and long before the days when air conditioning made sleep or work reasonably comfortable.
I believe that I am speaking for all past overseas civil servants, whether they now come under the Colonial Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office, or, as in the case of those who worked in the Sudan and Somalia, under the Foreign Office. But my major plea is for some attention to be given to the needs of those who retired before the great uplift in salaries between 1946 and 1949 inclusive.
I think that the House may be interested in hearing one or two figures about pensions for particular jobs. For instance, a provincial commissioner in Tanganyika who retired in 1945 gets a pension of £1,200 a year. In his day he would have been responsible for 2,250,000 people. Yet a man who did the same job and retired in 1960 receives a pension of £2,417. A district officer in Tanganyika responsible for administering 300,000 people, who retired in 1945, gets a pension of £870. One who did the same job and retired last year gets £1,630. A district officer in Ghana,


doing the same job, gets a smaller pension, one of £720 if he is married and £640 if he is unmarried.
I wish to quote now from a communication which I have received:
Although the Secretary of State has frequently stated that officers when accepting transfers would never be financially less well off than if they stayed in the territory to which they were posted, this does not work out in practice. I know of one case of an officer who transferred from Tanganyika to the Gold Coast in 1929 and who, as a result of a refusal of the present Ghana Government to grant any increase over and above"—
a very small increase which the writer mentions elsewhere—
is now £60 per annum less well off than if he had stayed in Tanganyika, and this has been the case for the last ten years.… A similar state of affairs appears with regard to Ceylon pensioners with mixed services. Whenever they receive an increase from other colonies in which they have served, the Ceylon Government reacts by deducting that amount from the pension which they pay. In other words, it is using the funds of another country for its own use'
This also applies in another case of which I am aware, of an overseas civil servant who spent half of his time in Nigeria and half in Ghana. Ghana is using the funds of Nigeria for her own purposes.
I know that there is a great difficulty about the comparability or parity—or whatever word is used—in relating pensions to the job, because of the great rise in salaries which has taken place since the war. But in the case of the Sudan an officer who retired just before 1950 gets a basic pension of £1,000 raised to £1,084 a year. Yet a man doing exactly the same job who retired eighteen months later gets £1,500. There seems to be little rhyme or reason in this.
I know that India has been treated differently and I know that civil servants of whatever rank retired after a number of years service on a pension of £1,000 a year. In Victorian times—and there has not been a change since then—this was a very good pension. But, of course, money values have altered and Her Majesty's Government have taken over the job of topping up those pensions. They have done it four times, so that now the Indian civil servants get £1,328 per annum.
My plea to the United Kingdom Government, who have the responsi-

bility, is to try to top up all these pensions paid from overseas. I wish to make clear that I am referring only to those who have retired in the United Kingdom. It is very difficult to speak of the large number locally recruited or who have retired in overseas territories.
It has been a matter of luck about where the civil servants have been sent. I wish to refer the Financial Secretary to Command Paper 306 of 1954, which states that all officers of the Colonial Service
are servants of the Crown and the conditions of their employment are embodied in the Colonial Regulations. These Regulations constitute the Secretary of State as the ultimate authority for appointments, discipline, promotion and general conditions of employment.
I agree that some countries have treated their pensioners well, particularly in the colonial sphere, including_ the Bahamas, Fiji, North Borneo, Sarawak, the Seychelles, the Falklands and Hong Kong. To a lesser extent, and partially, there is Cyprus, East African Railways and Harbours, Kenya, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Tanganyika, Uganda, Zanzibar, Trinidad and the South African High Commission. The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies said in a Written Answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Richard Pilkington), on 30th November:
Only the Governments of Aden, the Gambia, the Leeward and Windward Islands and British Honduras provide increases generally inferior to those granted here."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th November, 1961; Vol. 650, c. 84.]
The hon. Gentleman did not mention Barbados, Bermuda,—and Bermuda is rich enough—British Guiana, Gibraltar, St. Helena, Singapore and the West Pacific High Commission Territories, all of which provide pensions considerably below those granted here. I feel that a false impression was thereby created. If the Financial Secretary will look at the red figures on this sheet of paper which I have he will see that they outnumber the black figures.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): I am not at all sure that my hon. Friend is right about Bermuda. But rather than argue in detail about too many particular cases this morning, when we have little time, I will correspond with my hon. Friend later.

Mr. Tilney: I should be delighted to find that I am wrong. But some territories, of course, have done well even though they are not rich. I believe that they can never do very much, first, because of the poverty in many areas, and, secondly, because it is politically somehow necessary, in the party government which we have given to those territories, to create some sort of to the colonial past. It is very difficult for party politicians to stand up and say, "We must tax ourselves in order to provide money for pensioners living in the United Kingdom."
I am not saying that any of those territories will not fulfil their contractual obligations. I believe that they will. That is why I should like to hear of Her Majesty's Government being responsible merely for the topping up process, so as to bring the pensions of those who served overseas up to the level of those who stayed at home and benefited from the provisions of the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1959.
I believe that Her Majesty's Government should accept a measure of responsibility for our own internal inflation. I do not believe that the people of Ghana, India or Malaya are responsible for what has happened to our prices at home. I hope, too, that Her Majesty's Government will learn that in future negotiations about independence it is much more difficult, after independence has been granted, to make an arrangement with the Government which is about to become independent. The only Government—and this is a most honourable exception—that has increased the rate of pension since independence is the Government of Nigeria. Yet, over West Africa as a whole, the pensions of the intra-territorial civil servants, like those of the Medical Research Council, have still to be settled and are still causing a considerable amount of worry.
I suggest to the Financial Secretary that there are some glaring instances of wrong. I wish to quote from two letters. One says:
… my wife and I are faced with the prospect of having to sell our small bungalow … we have exhausted our small capital, although we have been able to look after the garden and to carry out redecoration inside and outside ourselves. The time has now come that we feel that we must have help either inside or outside which we cannot afford.…

We shall be very distressed if we are compelled to act in this way and discover later that owing to an increase in our pension we could have remained here … I was invalided out of the Gold Coast Colonial Civil Service in 1930 after 18 years' service, when I held the rank of Provincial Commissioner.
I wonder how much help he had inside and outside his home, and how many tens of thousands of people there were, whom, on instructions of the Secretary of State, he helped to guide towards Parliamentary democracy.
Another district commissioner, who retired in 1949 and was granted a pension of £642 a year which in 1952 was increased by the Gold Coast Government by 10s. a week, has since had two jobs lasting for eight years in all. He writes:
I am not alone in this black matter. Some, I know, have been driven on to the dole. A happy finale to years in the Crown Service! Others I believe have been driven to seek National Assistance.… Had I been sent to Nigeria—one had, and sought, no say—had I served there for the same length of time that I did in the Gold Coast, had I reached the same rank and retired on the same day, my pension now would be, as I understand it, three hundred pounds year greater than it is. This since 1959. … It is wrong that loyal servants of the Crown, after a lifetime in the Crown service should be driven to prop up their pensions with a second, a third, or even a fourth job…and… that they should be driven on to the dole. It is wrong … that Crown pensioners should be driven to beg cap in hand for National Assistance.
Those are two of the many letters I have seen.
The size of the problem is not all that great. I am amazed how small it is. I have with me an official document from the Department of Technical Cooperation. That Department says:
it is not at present possible to provide details territory by territory".
I wonder how foolish many private enterprise companies would look if on a take-over bid they said they did not know how many pensioners they had on their books. The document says that the total number of pensioners is 11,000. The number receiving less than the United Kingdom rates is 2,900 and the annual cost of basic pensions is £5,300,000. That, I believe, will be paid by all countries. The annual cost of supplementing overseas basic pensions where they are less than United Kingdom rates—the topping is all I ask for—is £180,000.
With reference to the widows, the document says:
there are slightly under 4,000 pensions in payment to dependents of overseas officers, of which about 2,300 are not receiving increases up to U.K. standards.
So we are talking about only £300,000 a year, which would put this whole matter right.
I have not much time now, because I know that my hon. Friends want to refer to a number of specific points, especially about Malaya, where the widows have not had any increase since 1947. There there is a means test such as we abolished in 1956. I think that my hon. Friends will also want to refer to Ghana, to whom we intend to grant £5 million for the Volta Dam project.
It seems that, although Her Majesty's Government say that they will discuss these things and they have very rightly met the officers of the Overseas Service Pensioners Association and quite a lot has been done during the last six months, by the time every one has been looked after most of the would-be recipients will be dead. I agree with what the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) once said: "If the Government swindle people in this way they will not get the service." That is the ultimate sanction.
I know that there will be little local sympathy for putting up pensions. I can understand the Treasury outlook, but I think there must be some sort of sanction. I do not often agree with what the Sunday Express says, but I have some sympathy with what appeared in it on 10th December, pointing out that in the next two years Mr. Nehru is to get £70 million from us. I cannot help thinking about what many Goanese who served in Liverpool ships during and after the war may feel about that.
I also remember that we gave £5 million to the Sudan in 1958, yet nothing has been done by the Sudan to help pensioners. I am delighted that at least some action has been taken by the Government of Somalia. I heard only today that they have increased pensions by £3,200 per annum and that payment is to be back-dated to April, 1961. I suspect that the fact that there has been a substantial grant in aid to Somalia recently has had some effect on pensions

from there. I hope this will be a good precedent but it is no good just waiting for something to turn up. I ask the Financial Secretary to tell us that when the principle of overseas Government responsibility rather than United Kingdom responsibility was first enunciated on whose authority that was, and whether it was made known to officials accepting employment with overseas Governments at the time.
I do not wish to argue that we should be responsible for the basic pension. I argue only for the topping up. I repeat that I believe the overseas Governments will pay the basic pension, but I cannot believe that Her Majesty's Government will not see the logic of my argument. A very slight decrease in the money given or lent overseas would look after this problem. The present position makes the worst of all possible advertisements for the service. Families all over the country would like to see a nephew or a son going into the Overseas Civil Service, but, if they hear of so many people who have been treated badly, they will advise those young people not to go. That, I regret to say, is what I have had to do when I have been asked my opinion much as I should like to see development in the Commonwealth as a whole. It is for these people that I make a plea, those who have made it possible to turn the Empire into a Commonwealth. I hope that they will not continue to be forgotten.

1.20 p.m.

Mr. John Strachey: I wish to speak for only a few minutes, because I know that many other hon. Members want to take part in the debate, to say that we on this side of the House have every sympathy with the plea that has just been made, and that we do not think that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) need make any apology for asking for this increased expenditure.
As the hon. Member emphasised, it is of a very different magnitude from the expenditure which we discuss for grants, running into tens of millions of pounds, to overseas territories. It is, however, an expenditure which, indirectly, is probably quite as important for the welfare of these territories, both those retaining colonial status and the newly


independent territories of the Commonwealth.
I would only say that the specific proposal of the hon. Member for Wavertree, which, as I understand it, is that Her Majesty's Government should in one form or another assume responsibility for what the hon. Member calls the "topping up", that is to say, the difference between the rates of increase in pension in these territories that have been actually achieved for these men and the pensions which they would be receiving if the Pensions (Increase) Acts were applicable to them, should be met by Her Majesty's Government. Unless the Financial Secretary can produce the most convincing arguments to the contrary, that seems to me to be a very strong case. We thought it right in the case of comparable pensioners in this country to enact the Pensions (Increase) Acts. If it was right in their case, surely comparable scales must be right in these cases.
There is, of course, the question of who is to pay. It would be fair and beneficial to Her Majesty's Government, wherever it was possible, to get a maximum amount of the pensions carried by the newly independent Governments, but, as the hon. Member for Wavertree has said, this is extremely difficult for them politically. He is not, I think, wrong in thinking that the matter ought at least to be mentioned in negotiations for grants or loans, but I do not think that we can make it a condition. But it could, I think, be brought into the discussions, quite properly, because I am quite sure, as the hon. Gentleman has emphasised, it is immensely in the interests of these overseas territories that these retired men should be well-treated.
These new territories will want to go on employing, in one capacity or another, men and women from this country, and it is crucially important, from the point of view of the calibre and the numbers of the men and women that they get, that retired men and women who have had experience in those parts of the world should recommend the younger generation to go there. That is a most compelling argument. I attach as much importance, I do not say more importance, to that, as to the argument of hardship, which is a very strong one.
The letters which the hon. Member has read out are very touching and compelling. Both arguments are of the greatest importance, and I think that the Government would be engaging in an extremely false economy if they did not endeavour to meet, in one way or another, the case of these very deserving men and women.

1.25 p.m.

Miss Joan Vickers: I wish to support the speech which has been so well moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney). I think that we are all very glad to see him back in his place and using his usual, persuasive manner to continue this attack.
Being Christmas, it may be that one's mind turns to festivities and perhaps also to Dickens' "Christmas Carol". On looking at the Financial Secretary, who is to reply, it is very difficult to imagine him as Mr. Scrooge. On the other hand, I think that, as a representative of the Treasury, he will be seen in that light if he does not give what my hon. Friend requested, and he may have the same nightmares, and be haunted by the spirits of the past, present and future.
I have been, for a very short time admittedly, a civil servant of the Colonial Office in Malaya, and I can, therefore, confirm what my hon. Friend has said about the widows of those who served in that country. One has to remember that had it not been for the people mentioned by my hon. Friend we should not have the Commonwealth as we know it today, and we certainly should not have, as I am sure the right hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) would agree, the magnificent Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference that we saw in September in this House.
In thinking about the spirit of the past and of the things mentioned by my hon. Friend, we have to remember that many of these people went to these territories at a very young age and had to undertake enormous responsibility. In those days, there were practically no roads, there were no aeroplanes, and communications were very difficult—they had no telephones. They were in a unique position—a position which we shall never see again.
My hon. Friend has mentioned the lack of control over diseases in those days. He mentioned malaria, and I should like to include dysentery, which wrecked many lives, and the leprosy infections, as well as those who died from cholera. In many cases the climate was totally unsuitable for children. They had to go up to the hill stations, or to be sent home. Furthermore, they had to be sent home for their education. This was a very great expense. It meant that these people had no chance at all to save, a point which I regard as particularly important.
In more recent days, even in the overseas service, there has been a chance to save, but in those days there was not. Salaries were not high. When one remembers the privations which many of them suffered during the war through being in prison—again I am thinking of Malaya—one realises their difficulties. Many of them went back again and did service long before they were fit, as a result of which they have suffered for the rest of their lives. It is time that they were given consideration.
I want particularly to speak about the Sudan, because this is a case which the Government must consider. It is a very bad case and it affects a very small number of people. Altogether, there are 932 pensioners. They get only very small pensions. For instance, there are six receiving between £ 1 and £100 a year 165 receiving between £200 and £300 a year and only three receiving between £1,400 and £1,500 a year. There are also 192 widows. Of these, 89 receive between £100 and £200 a year and only one receives between £400 and £500 a year. In this category there are 32 children whose pensions are payable, in the case of males, only to the age of 18 and in the case of girls only to the age of 21. It is interesting to realise how old these people are. Out of the 932 I have mentioned, 325 are between 60 and 70, 132 are between 70 and 80 and 17 are over 80. Among the widows. 41 are under 60 and 15 are over 80.

Mr. A. P. Costain: Does not my hon. Friend agree that because of these ages and the climates in which they have lived, they need extra heat in the winter, which costs a great deal?

Miss Vickers: That is a very good point and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making it. They probably still have to have special diets because of the various illnesses which they have contracted in the past.
I want my hon. Friend to think of these people in the present, but what will the "Future Spirit" show him? He must also think of "Tiny Tim". We do not want to leave this until it is too late to act. I therefore suggest to him that this Christmas is the very moment at which action should be taken.
Furthermore, when these people received their pensions in 1938 the £ was worth 20s. whereas in November, 1960 it was worth only 7s. This makes it even more difficult for them to live.
I want to make three quotations about the people from Sudan, in whom I am particularly interested. The Earl of Kimberley, in February, 1900, said:
There is also one other department of the Empire, as I suppose I must now call it, and not an unimportant one—the Sudan.
He acknowledged in those days that it was the responsibility of the Government.
Austen Chamberlain said, in a foreign affairs debate on 15th December, 1924:
His Majesty's Government have … direct responsibility to the people of the Sudan…We are there as trustees, and we insist that we shall have there for the future whatever authority is necessary in order to discharge our duty and our responsibilities to the people we govern."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 15th December, 1924: Vol. 179, c. 666.]
He agreed that these people of whom I speak were in the Sudan on behalf of His Majesty's Government of that day and that we had a responsibility to them just as we had for other overseas territories.
Finally, may I quote from Sir Anthony Eden, in the foreign affairs debate of 12th February, 1953. He said:
I cannot let this occasion pass without expressing the admiration which I, personally, feel and which. I am sure, the House will share with me, for the Sudan Civil Service.…Her Majesty's Government will certainly not forget what they have done, and will keep their interests in mind."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 12th February, 1953; Vol. 511, c. 605.]
I suggest that it is time that we began to keep their interests in mind. The future for these people will not be very expensive for the Government because,


since the Sudan Government British Pensioners' Association was formed, in 1952, 15 per cent. of its members have died. I gather that the total amount involved here would be only about £94,000 and that the application of the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1959, to these people would cost between £60,000 and £70,000.
These people are not asking for sympathy. They are asking for justice. I hope that my hon. Friend will pay particular attention to this section of people. They have been fortunate in the fact that the Sudan Government, despite the fact that we were only there working in the Condominion, have kept their word. We should be very grateful to them. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will see that these people do not suffer from the splendid service which they did in the Sudan and that they are given a guarantee of a better life in the future.

1.35 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I am delighted to realise that a number of hon. Members wish to speak in the debate. The more hon. Members who take part in the discussion the greater the impression we shall create on the Treasury. I say that advisedly, because so far it has been very difficult to make any indentation on the monolithic view of these matters taken by the Treasury.
Like the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers), I extend my congratulations to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney). We are not only delighted to see him back in his well-known form, but are glad that he has taken this opportunity to raise a matter which is dear to the hearts of hon. Members on both sides of the House and which worries them.
As far as I know, in this matter we have all hon. Members on one side and the Treasury Bench on the other. This is not a party matter. I should like to feel that at long last, especially as it is Christmas, we shall receive from the Financial Secretary a reply which is different from the usual reply we receive from the Government when matters of this kind are raised.
I do not want to repeat the figures which hon. Members have given, although I have them here. The amount is trivial, particularly when we remember what the Government do for what in

my view are less deserving interests. Not long ago we passed an Act to give a considerable sum to the Cunard Shipping Company. The Government could find that money, but they cannot find a few hundred thousand pounds to do justice to these deserving people.
I thought that the hon. Member for Wavertree put his finger on the thing which bothers many of us when we consider these cases. We are not asking that those who have retired in recent years should have their pensions increased. We are speaking of those who worked in these outlying areas in years when conditions were very different from present conditions, whose salaries were less than salaries now are and whose pensions are less, too.
In view of the present high cost of living, these people have to live on a pension which is grossly inadequate to their needs. The hon. Member for Wavertree quoted one or two letters which he had received, and most of us could multiply the examples which he gave from correspondence which we have had. I assure the Financial Secretary that a large number of these pensioners are suffering great hardship. It is unfair to them and undignified for a great nation that we should permit loyal servants, who served the country well, to suffer in this way.
I therefore hope that the Financial Secretary will throw his brief away, will let his heart for once rule his head and will tell us he has been greatly impressed by what has been said—because so far only facts have been dealt with in the debate—and that he will do what he has been pressed to do for so long, namely, help those pensioners who have had to retire on pensions which are grossly inadequate and are based on salaries received many years ago.
There have been three or four Pensions (Increase) Acts and none of them, as far as I know, has helped any of the people for whom we are pleading. I am glad to think that others have been helped, although not to as great an extent as many of us would have wished. But nothing has been done for the people for whom we speak this afternoon.
The hon. Member for Devonport quoted from a speech by Sir Anthony Eden, as he then was. She did not


quote the whole of it. I am tempted to do so, but because time is short I shall not. However, I should like to quote something the Prime Minister said only last year:
to the Overseas Service he would say that they were happy and proud to remember their services in the past and were mindful of their welfare now and in the future. Their problems were constantly in all their thoughts.
If this is true and their problems are constantly in the thoughts of the Government, the Treasury, being part of the Government, should surely consider it time to take action to translate thoughts into something more tangible.
The Secretary of State for the Colonies made a speech on the same occasion. He was much more forthcoming. The quotation I have from his speech is much longer, so I will not weary the House with it. I could quote statements by other Ministers, many of them still in the Government, who have committed themselves more than once to the assertion that we owe an enormous debt to those who go abroad on our behalf and serve in the Colonies, under grave difficulties and suffer hardship. The least the Government can do is to recognise this and do something to ameliorate their lot.
The cost would be negligible. In respect of Sudan it would come to about £150,000 all told—£90,000 initially, and £60,000 or £70,000 to be added if the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1959, were put into effect. What is called "topping up" the other overseas pensions would cost about £240,000. These are very small figures in comparison with the gross income of this country. This amount is nothing to the Government, but it would make all the difference in the world to the people for whom we plead.
I hope that the Financial Secretary will remember that it is Christmas. I hope that he will forget that he is Financial Secretary. Instead of giving us the speech which I expect from him, I hope that he will deliver a speech which we shall be all delighted to hear. If the Government acceded to our request, no harm would be done, but much good would result from it.
I want to refer to the plight of the Indian civil servants, who, in 1947, because of the constitutional changes in

India, lost their jobs and their careers and were very properly given compensation. Some of them found employment elsewhere. They took their compensation, and nothing more need be said about them. Some, after a good deal of effort, obtained positions in the Home Civil Service. They entered the Civil Service as temporaries. Some of them, in fact, went to the Colonial Office. They have been temporary civil servants ever since.
It was then decided—a statement to this effect was made from the Dispatch Box by the then Financial Secretary—that, if they obtained a permanent and pensionable post within two years, they should refund their compensation. That was just and proper. In about 1950 the Treasury officials went to the Staff Side of the Whitley Council and suggested that that time should be extended and that, if any of these people obtained permanent and pensionable posts, as a result of the examinations held in 1950, the new rule should not apply and they should refund their compensation. The Staff Side agreed, but to the astonishment of many of us, we have found that, although the Staff Side agreed on that occasion, their aquiescence has been taken to be for all time.
The result is that today, about twelve years after the 1949 statement, the Treasury is still implementing that decision. It insists that anyone who obtains a permanent and pensionable post should refund his compensation, which I imagine all of them—certainly a large number of them—have already spent. This action is very low down. I hope that in this respect also the Financial Secretary will have some good news for us and will be able to tell us that the new rule shall no longer apply.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Devonport mentioned the position of the pensioners who served in the Sudan. Like other hon. Members, I have constituents who are now in receipt of pensions after a period of good service in that country. I had intended to talk about their position, but, as the hon. Lady has done it so well and as other hon. Members wish to speak, I shall not say more. I hope that the Financial Secretary will be able to give us some news about the former Sudan civil


servants. If ever a body served this country well, it was those who went into the Sudan Civil Service. At the time they were greatly complimented on their work. Nothing tangible, however, has come of it. It is about time that something did.

1.48 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): I should like to join in the congratulations which have been accorded to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney). I also want to thank the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have taken part in this necessarily short debate and to say that I know that a number of other hon. Members from both sides of the House would have wished to take part in the debate if time had permitted.
I regret that it is necessary for me to rise so soon, but I must do so in fairness to the hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones), who has the next subject for debate. It is certainly a change for those of us who have been here during the last day or two to take part in a debate in which not one point of order has been raised and in which the difference of opinion, instead of being between the two sides of the House, is between the whole House of Commons and the Treasury, as often happens on days like this.
I entirely agree with all that has been said about the importance of the service which many of these overseas civil servants have rendered. I always think that even in this country we sometimes take too much for granted the services of many professional people without whom our present civilised society would not be possible. This is even more true when one is considering the service of people overseas, and I entirely agree with all that has been said on this subject.
I must tell the House quite frankly today—I do not want in any way to prevaricate or try to suggest that the plain meaning of my words is not what I am trying to say—that the Government take the same view as their predecessors and consider that, just as in the United Kingdom the responsibility for increasing pensions falls on the employer, so the cost of any increase in overseas service pensions is the responsibility of the

employing Governments who pay those pensions.
That is the principle that has been expressed in this House on a number of occasions; for example, by my predecessor, the present Solicitor-General, during the passage of the 1959 Pensions (Increase) Bill and, more recently, by my right hon. Friend the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster during the Second Reading of the Overseas Services Bill on 24th January of this year. That principle applies equally to the basic pensions and to any pensions increase that may be paid.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree asked, quite fairly: when did this principle start? To answer that question fully one would have to go into a lot of past history of the Colonial Empire but, very briefly, I think that the answer is this. In the overseas colonial service, selection was the responsibility of the Colonial Office but the appointment was the responsibility of the Government concerned. Even if we go back a long way, I do not believe that we will find that that principle was ever really questioned or doubted.
Just what are the reasons why many successive Governments have adhered to this policy? There can be no question at all of the Government's being indifferent to the fate of these pensioners. The Government believe that the course they have followed in what is a very difficult matter is, as far as can be seen, the course best calculated to serve the interests of all those concerned. The pensions which form the subject of the debate are the responsibility of the relevant overseas Government.
It is not hard to imagine what would happen if this principle were breached on the initiative of the United Kingdom Government. Not only would it be a matter of the United Kingdom giving pensions increases in the place of Governments which, for one reason or another, had for the time being felt unable to do so but, what is more important—and this is the point I want to stress—it would be very likely that the overseas Governments which have so far cheerfully accepted their responsibilities in full would consider themselves unfairly treated when increases due to be paid by other Governments were made by the United Kingdom. This is the


great difficulty which I do not, with respect, think that any hon. Members—and I do not blame them for it—have met in this debate.
It seems to me that there is a very real chance that the end result would be that no other overseas Government would, in future, be ready to give a pensions increase and, without appearing alarmist, I cannot help feeling that this assumption of liability might even be regarded as betokening a lack of confidence in the good faith of the overseas Governments concerned to go on paying, not only the pensions increase but the basic pensions themselves, and the effect might well be to call needlessly into question the security of the basic pensions themselves.
I do not expect all hon. Members to accept that argument but I hope that they will consider it seriously, because I think that a change in Government policy here might not only result in a financial liability for the United Kingdom Government, but have repercussions that would redound to the disadvantage of exactly those people for whom the House is showing concern—

Mr. Tilney: I understood that that had already been accepted for some years in the case of Pakistan.

Sir E. Boyle: If there is time, and if I have the leave of the House, I want to say something especially about Pakistan and India. That, I think, is rather a special case.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: It would help the House to know what other Governments besides that in the Sudan are in the position to which the Financial Secretary referred a few moments ago. The Sudan was a Condominium, and I agree that it employed other civil servants besides British. It is the argument of the Government of the Sudan, and a very strong argument, that if they let us do this, others would feel aggrieved. What other areas are in the same position?

Sir E. Boyle: I agree that the Sudan is, in a sense, in a special category. On the other hand, I think that it would be quite impossible for us to think that we would—if I may use the term—"get away with it" by treating Sudan pensioners in the way we treat other overseas pensioners.
I shall not give to the House a precise estimate of the amount of public money concerned, because I think that it would be misleading. All I can say is that I do not believe that, in practice, the amount of public money at stake could possibly be limited to the few hundred thousand pounds the right hon. Gentleman has suggested. We would have to consider possible repercussions over a very wide field, and while I do not take, and have not today taken, my stand purely on the amount of money involved, I think that the right hon. Gentleman's estimate is optimistic.
I want to make it quite plain that it is not true to say that the Government have taken no interest in the conditions of overseas pensioners. In fact, very many efforts have been made, and still are being made, to persuade the Governments of the dependent territories concerned to increase the pensions they have awarded by amounts comparable with those under the United Kingdom Pensions (Increase) Acts. As to the independent countries, it is, of course, for their Governments to decide whether to grant corresponding increases, but we always bring United Kingdom legislation which increases pensions to their notice, and take all other steps possible to ensure that the pensioners' case receives consideration.
Most Governments have responded well—and that should be remembered. Of the 49 concerned, 31, including a large number of the bigger ones, have pensions increase Measures which are, on the whole, at least as favourable as those in the United Kingdom. Of the remainder, we know of three at least where improvements are currently being considered. I shall not read out the list, but if the House ever desires the information it is quite possible to publish the "state of play" at any give time in a Written Answer.
It is estimated that there are about 13,000 overseas service pensioners of various kinds—excluding India, Pakistan, Burma and Palestine, which are rather special cases—and I shall say something in a moment about India and Pakistan. About two-thirds of those 13,000 are as well off under the present arrangements—many, indeed, are better off under them—than they would be if


United Kingdom Pensions (Increase) legislation applied to them.
As for the remaining one-third, some fall only a little below the United Kingdom level, and some may well move up to it as a result of the improvements now being considered by the Governments concerned. My hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree mentioned Somaliland. He had a Question down, and received an Answer only this morning, and I hope that that is a sign of the Government continuing to apply pressure.
It is important to remember that, apart from the actual amounts, most overseas Governments do not specify an age restriction under their increase schemes, which means that the great majority of pensioners can receive pension increase at age 55 and, in a number of cases, at an even lower age. In this country, pensions increase is not payable, save in special cases, until the pensioner reaches 60 years, irrespective of the normal pensionable age of his employment. Roughly speaking, about 50 per cent. of existing overseas pensioners are receiving increases that are higher than the United Kingdom rate and, excluding widows, about 40 per cent. of existing overseas pensioners are under 60.
I can promise the House that the Government will continue their efforts. In October, Ministers of the Colonial Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Department of Technical Co-operation told representatives of the Overseas Service Pensioners Association of the progress made by overseas Governments in this direction since the passing of the last United Kingdom Act in 1959, and a further meeting to review progress will take place in the spring, probably in April.
I want to repeat that most of the overseas Governments have responded well to our approaches, and I think that, on the whole, the record is a good one. I hope that this debate will have served a useful purpose in drawing attention to what I quite agree is a subject of very great importance.
Because the hon. Member for Waver-tree made remarks concerning India and Pakistan I shall deal with this briefly and, in doing so, I apologise to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for

West Ham, South for delaying the House. The special arrangements for basic pensions for Indian pensioners stem from the Pensions (India, Pakistan and Burma) Act, 1955. The purpose of that Act was to enable the Government to take over, from April, 1955, the control administration and payment of the pensions of persons who served the Crown in India and who were living outside India, Pakistan, Aden or Burma.
These arrangements, which were agreed with the Government of India, revised those made in July, 1948, by which the Government of India purchased from the United Kingdom Government certain annuities for the purpose of meeting their sterling pensionary obligations. In return for the assumption by Her Majesty's Government for the responsibility for these pensions, the Indian Government renounced so much of the proceeds of the annuities as corresponded to the estimated cost of the pensionary obligations to be transferred. Similar terms were proposed for the pensions being paid by Pakistan, but difficulties arose over the financial aspects and no agreement has yet been reached. Thus, the Pakistan Government are still paying pensions to their own pensioners and so are the Burmese Government.
India discharged her responsibility of paying basic sterling pensions by the other arrangements; the payment of a capital sum to meet the annual liability. It was these special arrangements which justifies the assumption by Her Majesty's Government of the responsibility for paying the basic pensions. This point is often raised by hon. Members and I wanted to explain these special arrangements which, in our view, justify this treatment of these particular pensioners in this case.
In general, the Government have given a lot of thought to this subject. We should hesitate hard before changing our policy both because of these possible repercussions and also because we must think of the effects of a change of policy on the territories which have already behaved well in respect of overseas pensioners. There is a danger, if we made a change of policy, that we should not be acting in the best interests of those on whose behalf hon. Members have so rightly spoken this afternoon.

ACCIDENTS AT WORK

2.3 p.m.

Mr. Elwyn Jones: I regret to raise on the eve of Christmas such a sombre theme as accidents at work, but the fact remains that today about 22 million of our countrymen will be at work and in the course of the day it is probable that about 2,500 of them will be injured in the course of their work. Further, four or five people at work who are alive now will be dead before the day is over.
I make no apology for putting the matter in such graphic terms. Last year, in premises to which the Factories Acts applied, there were more than 190,000 accidents causing death or disability from work for more than three days. Of those, 675 were fatal accidents compared with less than 600 in 1959. The figures show an increase of over 16,000 accidents over the total for 1959—an increase of 9 per cent.—and although special factors and the increase in the working population account for some of the increase, I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that the situation is gravely disturbing.
The 1960 figures continued at accelerated rate the trend which began in 1959. Compared with the downward trend for the ten years ended 1958, the 1960 total was the highest for ten years. Accidents, for instance, in building operations reached an alarming new record and in docks and warehouses—with which my constituency is particularly concerned—we saw the highest total since 1955. What is even more disturbing; accidents to women and young persons increased proportionately more than accidents to men. The number of accidents per thousand workers in the manufacturing industries showed a rise of 4 per cent, in accidents to males, compared with 9 per cent. in accidents to females.
Reported accidents to young persons numbered over 12,500, an increase of more than 1,500 compared with the previous year and an increase of 15 per cent. There were nearly 10,000 accidents to boys, an increase of 17 per cent.
As statistics may be dull, perhaps I can illustrate the gravity and tragedy

of the problem by speaking of two cases with which I am familiar. A little girl in Cardiff in 1960, at the age of 16, suffered severe injuries to her right hand on a core-making machine. She had had 15 minutes' instruction and one and a half days' experience at that machine before she suffered this nasty accident which maimed her for life. A boy in London who was injured in 1960—at the age of 15—lost half his right thumb on a platen machine. He had had no proper training and had been working for six weeks on the machine before his accident.
These cases are not exceptional. I know of several cases—details of which I could provide if necessary—where girls and boys aged 15, 16 and 17 are put to work on dangerous machines, some of them inadequately guarded, without any safety training at all. It is a deplorable aspect of our contemporary industrial life that young people like this are simply thrown into industries as a form of cheap labour with no, or the most inadequate, training in safety matters.
This scandal—and a scandal it is—may get worse. How would hon. Members like their own children to be subjected to these hazards without training? It may get worse for the reason put forward by the Factory Inspectorate; that the number of boys and girls leaving school will continue to increase over the next two or three years. Thus an increased number of unskilled and untrained workers will be thrown into factory environment and will thereby be vulnerable to these hazards. In a large number of industrial undertakings—and especially in the smaller ones, where the chief evils arise—children are taken in straight from school. Perhaps—and not even this in all cases—they are given a short explanation in a general way by the foreman or charge-hand on what their duties will be and they are then put to work.
The practice seems to be for the foreman or charge-hand to take them to the machine, which is all too often being operated at that time by a child who left school the term before. The new employee will usually be left to watch the other youngster at work from periods of from half an hour to a day


and then this untrained boy or girl is set to work on the machine. In most cases the work is dull. It is high-speed, repetitive work often involving the output of hundreds of thousands of components. There is, therefore, nothing to capture the imagination of the young worker and his attention tends to stray. This, coupled with the almost total absence of training—and, alas, all too often, the absence of adequate safeguards on the machines—produces the serious position with which we are now confronted.
The accident rate among adult workers, too, may become worse with more and more machines becoming more and more high powered and more and more dangerous. More hours worked, greater output, greater storing, constant change in the rate and duration of flow of work—all are factors which tend to increase the risk of accidents.
So far I have spoken only of reportable accidents under the Factories Acts, which is only a part of the picture—indeed, only about a quarter of the picture—of accidents at work. It is startling to discover that in farming, for instance, accidents occur proportionately mare than they do in factories. Each year there are over 800,000 cases of injury at work and the average period of incapacity is four weeks. These cause appalling suffering not only to the worker but to his family. I remember in my own childhood the dread in a working-class street of the knock at the door and the news that "There has been an accident at the works." The cost in terms of pounds, shillings and pence is enormous. Mr. John Wiiliams, in his masterly study of "Accidents and ill health at work", cites authorities which put the cost at figures ranging from £100 million to £300 million a year.
Yet accidents just do not happen. They are caused. They can be prevented. It is quite wrong—I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me—to assume that there must be an irreducible minimum of upreventable accidents. As the International Labour Office, whose work in this field we all recognise, has put it,
Industrial accidents are not truly accidental occurrences. They nearly all have causes which are both ascertainable and controllable.

The stark fact is that, as the Factory Inspectorate has reported time and again, at places of work where accident prevention is taken seriously the yearly totals of accidents are much less than at other works of a similar kind. Accordingly, in my submission, in view of the undoubted worsening of the situation, we have reached the stage where there is an urgent need for a change of attitude in industry as a whole—owners officials and workers. There is also need for a fresh impetus and a new intervention from the Government. Whether we shall get it from the present Government, who have so deplorably dragged their feet over the implementation of the Gowers Committee's recommendations, is another matter. But on this eve of Christmas I do not want to enter unduly into political controversy.
The heart of the problem is twofold—first, the need for enforcement and extension to unprotected processes and places of the provisions of the Factories Acts and the regulations issued under them; secondly, and perhaps even more important, the need for more effective safety organisation at the place of work itself.
As to enforcement, this is now largely done by the able, devoted but overworked Factory Inspectorate. I think that the members of the Factory Inspectorate would be the first to say that they cannot be wholly effective on their own, for the simple reason that they cannot be at the place of work all the time. Their effectiveness depends on safety organisation on the spot which should be there to assist them in their endeavours. I am sure they would insist that safety matters should be under constant supervision in every undertaking.
In any event, however, the strength of the Factory Inspectorate, even allowing for the most welcome recent increase in numbers which the Ministry of Labour has announced, will still be inadequate for its task. In effect, the work of regular routine inspection of places subject to the Factories Acts is done by from 320 to 330 members of the general Inspectorate. As there are nearly 250,000 places of employment affected by the Factories Acts, it is extremely doubtful whether the Factory Inspectorate can, on its present establishment or indeed on the establishment as it is to be


increased, achieve the standard of the I.L.O. Convention of 1947 to which we have subscribed, namely that
work places shall be inspected as often and as thoroughly as is necessary to ensure effective application of the relevant provisions.
This deficiency in the strength of the Inspectorate is particularly grievous at a time when there is considerable evidence of a widespread absence of any safety organisation at all in many work places, or any effective safety organisation in many of them. Work place safety organisations are of two kinds, voluntary and the compulsory. It is curious that in the mining industry compulsory safety provisions specified by Statute have been the pattern for a long time, partly no doubt because of the dangerous nature of the work of mining. Mines Acts have required mine owners to appoint deputies to carry out specified duties in regard to inspection and safety, and even more interesting is the mining legislation that provides for the election by the workers of their own inspectors whom they pay, with statutory powers to inspect mines and investigate accidents. It is most valuable because this machinery enables those with most at stake—that is to say, their own survival and safety—to exert a direct influence on matters of safety.
In my view, the time is ripe for considering the introduction of similar provisions by industry itself, especially where dangerous processes are involved, for the evidence is clear that these compulsory work place safety organisations have been invaluable in the mining industry. This suggestion that it should be extended to industries other than mining is not novel. Indeed, it was made in 1927 when there was another sombre phase of increases in accidents, and the Draft Safety Order of 1927 was produced. This provided that the occupier of a factory had to submit a scheme for special supervision in regard to safety, investigation of the circumstances and causes of accidents and generally to promote safety. If no scheme was approved, the employer was obliged to employ a competent safety supervisor whose duties were defined in most helpful detail.
This Draft Order was circulated by the Inspectorate among employers, and they were told that if they were prepared to introduce similar machinery

voluntarily the Order would not be pressed. The employers purported to accept the alternative. But the question remains: has the voluntary effort, in fact, proved adequate and is it effective now? Over a wide range of places of work the answer to those questions is "No". It is true that many employers employ full-time safety officers. That, of course, is extremely important and most welcome. Many of them do their work admirably and are taken seriously, and they instil safety consciousness. But again, as Mr. John Williams has pointed out, the position of the safety officer in industry is still uncertain, and his rôle varies according to the attitude of the management.
Worse than that is the stark fact that a full-time safety officer is still the exception rather than the rule. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give the House figures showing the number of full-time safety officers employed in factories and specifying, in relation to the numbers employed in factories, how many safety officers there are and in what percentage of factories they exist.
Even more unhappy is the position in regard to safety committees. The Inspectorate, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Industrial Welfare Society, employers' associations, trade unions, the T.U.C. and the I.L.O.—a wide range of experts in these matters—have commended the institution of safety committees. The reasons are obvious. A safety committee involves a number of persons having an active interest on the spot, able to analyse accidents, develop policy and draw on practical experience. They are able to stimulate safety consciousness and help the Inspectorate. There are abundant resaons why safety committees should be widely used in industry. They are not.
We raised this matter in a Private Members' Bill six or seven years ago. It then emerged, I think, that in only about 2 per cent. of factories were there safety organisations. I hope that the Minister will tell us the number of safety committees in various types of factories in the country today. I fear that the figures will be disappointing. It is deplorable that there should be this absence of safety organisation on the spot in such a wide range of industries


when it is known that where they exist they have led to remarkable results in the reduction of accidents. One sees this time and again in the reports of the Inspectorate, accident rates being cut sometimes by as much as 50 per cent.
This being the lamentable picture, the conclusion is irresistible. The voluntary system has largely failed and it is now time to consider an element of compulsion. The Minister already has powers of compulsion at his disposal under the Factories Acts. There is limited prevision in some regulations—like those for the pottery industry, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) was so actively concerned, and those for the celluloid industry and the building industry—for the appointment of safety officials by the employers. This has been done and they have proved very useful. Regrettably, they have had limited usefulness in building operations for reasons which, unfortunately, I have no time to pursue now. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us something about that.
Apart from provisions in certain regulations for the appointment of safety officials by employers, the Minister already has power to require a safety organisation to be introduced where he considers it necessary. By Section 38 of the Factories Act, he has specific power to make regulations requiring a safety organisation to be set up in particular trades or processes where he considers it necessary in view of the number and nature of accidents occurring. But, to the best of my knowledge, no regulations have ever been made under that Section. It is high time that it was done. I do not think that the compulsory process would damage the voluntary set-up at all. On the contrary, it would give impetus to the solution of the whole safety problem.
A further word about young persons. The emphasis here must be on proper apprenticeship in the full sense. The vast majority of firms do not train apprentices at all; they are quite content to use boys and girls as cheap labour. Where there is no proper apprenticeship—and that is the clue, for early assimilated training and safety awareness is necessary—there should at least be adequate safety training, which ought to start in the last year or so at school. Road safety training is now

common in schools, and it must have saved many lives, but in rare cases only is there training for safety at work. I cannot help thinking that more could be done through local labour exchanges acting in conjunction with technical colleges and schools—which, incidentally, I hope will in their turn keep a watchful eye on their own safety standards which, I am sorry to say, are not always as good as they should be.
In my view, the most stringent requirements should be made on employers of all young workers to give proper safety training before young workers are permitted to work on any dangerous machine, and heavy penalties should be imposed on employers who fail to comply.
Curiously enough, some provisions do exist under the Factories Acts, requiring the training of young persons on certain machines. Is there not a strong case for extending those provisions? In mining the Coal Board has made an organised attempt to influence new entrants in safety matters; indeed, they are not sent to the coal face without long training. Also, there are some companies in industry generally which take the problem very seriously. For instance, the Steel Company of Wales, with which I am familiar, has arrangements whereby each boy employee has forty half-hour periods of safety training in each year. This type of education is vital in industry.
The accident picture is a very sombre one. I hope that the message which will emerge from the Parliamentary Secretary's reply today, as a new year resolution for industry and for his Ministry, will be "Safety First".

2.27 p.m.

Dr. Barnett Stress: We have all listened with the deepest interest to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones). He has described the picture as a sombre one. In the early part of his speech, he gave 190,000 as the number of accidents reported by the Chief Inspector of Factories, an increase of 9 per cent. on the previous year. It is my purpose, in supporting all he has said, to show that the figures he has given, which have been presented to us by the Chief Inspector, are not correct and that the true picture


must be very much worse. If my hon. and learned Friend is right in saying that the picture is sombre, I hope to be able to satisfy the House and the Minister that it really is very much blacker than it appears to be on the surface.
Obviously, if we are to appreciate the problem properly and find a feasible method of solution, we must know everything we can about it. We have a right to ask that the total number of accidents as given should be as near as possible correct. The Chief Inspector himself does not know. The reason he does not know was made clear on 4th December by the Minister of Labour when, in reply to a Question from me asking, in effect, what he intended to do about obtaining figures of accidents which are not reported to the Inspectorate and which should be so reported, he said:
I am considering means by which I could obtain more reliable information than is now available to me about the extent to which accidents are not reported."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th December, 1961; Vol. 650, c. 114.]
The evidence that I wish to put forward showing that accidents are not reported is this. The spells of certified incapacity arising from accidents as shown by the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance in his tables are very much greater than the number of accidents reported to the factory inspectors. In table 41, on pages 122 and 123 of the Report of the Ministry of Pensions for the year 1959, the spells of incapacity are set out on an industry basis. I have taken the groups 4 to 18 inclusive. Group 4 deals with the chemical and allied trades and group 18 with the gas, electricity and water undertakings. I have left out group 19, which deals with transport and communications, and, for the purpose of my calculation, I leave out men employed in the water undertakings. I recognise that some of the individual cases in the table should be left out from my calculations, because they do not come under the protection of the Minister of Labour or under the Factories Acts. I give some brief examples.
If a clerk employed in a cotton mill is injured, he is included in the statistics, but he does not come under the Factories Acts. A lorry driver driving a lorry for a foundry may be included but should not, in the interests of accuracy,

be included for my purpose. Neither should a commercial traveller employed by a clothing factory. Two or three spells of incapacity in one year can arise from one accident—in rare cases perhaps even more than three. Because of this, I have left out from my calculations workers in the docks and in water undertakings. In leaving them out, I have been generous for the purpose of my calculations.
When we add up groups 4 to 18 we find that the total is 235,000 compared with the 174,000 accidents reported to the Chief Inspector, 61,000 more than appears—in other words, an increase of 35 per cent. The explanation, I think, is clear. The men and women who are injured and go off work for more than three days make a monetary claim. Therefore, the figures can be obtained from the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. But all that the Minister of Labour can do is to say, "I have the figures of all the accidents which have been reported to me. All accidents ought to be reported, but I suspect that they are not." Every accident should be reported, whether to the inspector for safety in agriculture or to the factory inspector, as well as a report being made for the purpose of monetary claims.
The Chief Inspector cannot help but under-state the number of accidents. Last year, there were not 190,000 accidents, but at least 250,000. This shows how sombre is the picture. The key to the problem is in the hands of the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. He could, if a change which I shall suggest shortly were made, give us more accurate information than we have at present if he broke down the tables so that we knew which workers came under the Factory Inspectorate, which came under agriculture, which came under mines, and so on.
I suppose that the worst offenders in this matter are the very small factories employing 1 to 25 people. Eighty-three per cent. of the factories in this country employ only 1 to 25 people. The employers in them tend to be ignorant of their duties. There is not a frequent enough inspection to satisfy, I believe, the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary. There is certainly not enough to satisfy the workers in industry. Employers tend to be left for


four to five years before someone visits them and reminds them of their statutory duty. That is one of the reasons why I want more factory inspectors. If the accident rate is 20 per 1,000, we can assume that in the small factories employing 1 to 25 people there were about 22,600 accidents last year.
I wonder how many of those accidents were reported. I suggest—this is a guess; we can only guess in these matters—that less than one-third of those accidents were reported to the Factory Inspectorate. No doubt all the accidents for which people wish to make a monetary claim were reported to the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. As I hope I have made clear, the figures of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance are not good enough for our purpose. They are not absolutely clear. There is too much speculation about detail in them.
We have noted with pleasure that the Factory Inspectorate is to be increased by about 30 inspectors. The Parliamentary Secretary has heard my hon. and learned Friend plead for special protection to be given to young people. When I have put Questions to the Minister of Education about the need to give special care and training in accident prevention to young men and women training and working in laboratories and machine shops in technical schools, I have been told that there is adequate consultation with the Factory Inspectorate. But there is not adequate consultation with the Factory Inspectorate.
Now that we are to have over 30 new inspectors out of the extra 350 that I should like to see—that would mean doubling the number of inspectors—will the Parliamentary Secretary ensure that approaches are made to the Minister of Education offering to inspect technical schools and technical colleges where those who are to be the future leaders of industry are being trained but not adequately catered for in the prevention of accidents? I think that this could be done.
My hon. and learned Friend said that 320 or 330 inspectors actually inspect. He said they are responsible for 250,000 factories and sites, but, in fact, they are responsible for about 300,000 factories and sites. In those circumstances, they do very well indeed

if they can inspect a factory once in four years. The whole country thinks that this is not good enough. It is thought that they should be able to inspect them at least once in two years. Here we have an invaluable body of men with a great tradition. For a hundred years they have been working in accident prevention. Whether we lose £100 million a year or £300 million a year, as stated by my hon. and learned Friend, through accidents, surely it is worth spending the few hundred thousand pounds needed to double the complement of the Inspectorate.
I remember another occasion when I found that virtually all children throughout the country who were making pottery at school, all adults who were attending evening classes and all students who were being trained at technical schools in pottery-making were, until I raised the matter three or four years ago, subjected to raw lead glazes and the constant steady risk of lead poisoning. Nobody was doing anything about it because the Factory Inspectorate could not go in and was never asked to do so. So much for the amount of consultation that goes on between the Ministry of Labour and other Departments.
I am asking for much more cooperation. I am asking for two things One is an increase in the Inspectorate of a more substantial nature than we have been promised; and the other is for more research to be done into the prevention of accidents and for co-ordination and co-operation between the Government Departments who are involved.
The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance is allowed to do research, or, if he does not do it himself, he may contribute to research under Section 73 of the 1947 Act. I asked the Minister the other day what he does. He replied that it was not for him, but for his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, to do it. The Minister of Labour, however, does no formal research in accident prevention. He analyses the figures and presents a picture to the country—and a horrifying picture it is, as he agrees. Having done this, he does not do any more. We would like more than this to be done by those who can do it. If the Minister of Pensions and National


Insurance can contribute, let him pay and let the Minister of Labour then do the work of research.
I ask, however, for something which would cost no money but would be very effective; that is, that the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, the Departments connected with agriculture and mining and any Department which is involved in safety legislation, should co-operate and work together to ensure that the figures and tables that are made available shall be accurate, for with accuracy, once we know the extent of our suffering, we will be able to move forward with greater certainty of success than we have done up to the present.

2.43 p.m.

Mr. R. E. Prentice: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) has done a great service by initiating this debate. This is a matter which deserves far more attention, and at greater length, from the House, and which should receive much more attention by the public outside. I wish that the Press would make more of this big social problem.
I do not know exactly how many people are injured at work every year. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) has indicated the complications that exist, but including the people working in premises which come under the Factories Acts and in other premises, including reported and unreported accidents, the number is obviously very large. Some of my trade union friends estimate that it may be as many as 1 million accidents a year throughout all places of work.
That is a tremendous total. It is far more than the total of road accidents, which receive a great deal of public attention. In terms of time lost from work, it is many times the length of time that is lost in strikes, which also receive a lot of attention. In other words, we are dealing with a problem which, from both its human and its economic angle, deserves much more attention than it has had. It is particularly disturbing that in 1960 there was a rise of 9 per cent, in reported accidents over the previous year, which itself showed a rise over the year before. I do not know

the current figures for 1961. Possibly, the Parliamentary Secretary can tell us something about this when he replies.
It is often said, and it has been said by the Minister of Labour in reply to the Questions which we have asked him from time to time, that the scope of Government action is limited and that this is a problem which has to be dealt with within industry. Obviously, there is a certain amount of truth in that, although it can be overstated. My view is that the Government could do rather more than they are doing now.
Obviously, we cannot legislate against carelessness. We cannot, by Government action, decide how a man shall lift a heavy weight, how a load is to be tied up, or all the other practical problems that lead to so many accidents. There is tremendous need for employers generally to come up to the standard already set by the best employers. There is a great contrast between the figures of accidents for some firms and for other firms. This ought to be regarded as one of the primary responsibilities of management, but in far too many cases it is not being so regarded.
One should add that the trade unions obviously have a duty, which to some extent they are carrying out—but there again, it is a patchy record—first, to inculcate as far as they can safety consciousness among their members, and secondly, themselves to bring up to scratch those employers who fall short and to campaign for more joint safety committees and the like.
The House will probably like to welcome the recent statement by Mr. Frank Cousins on behalf of the Transport and General Workers' Union that that union is initiating a safety campaign throughout the whole of the industries in which its members work. This union, with its membership of 1¼ million, has members in many industries. It is organising a nationwide campaign both for reducing the number of accidents and for improving the standards of occupational health. It is urging its branches and local officials to pay particular attention to the need to establish joint safety committees at places of work.
We all have to recognise that this is not a matter which can be solved in a union headquarters any more than in


this House, but that it must be solved at the place of work. That is where the great effort must be made. The Government themselves have the overall responsibility of giving a lead. Many of us feel that although the Government express good intentions on this matter, they do not follow them up with action which is sufficiently positive. Of the many things which the Government could do, a substantial increase in the Factory Inspectorate is the most obvious step. Inspection is one factor in preventing accidents, and it is a factor directly under the control of the Government.
We welcome, of course, the modest increase in the numbers of the Factory Inspectorate announced by the Minister a week or two ago, but, as in so many things, the Government do too little and too late. We ought to be setting a much higher standard indeed. Clearly, if an inspector goes more regularly to every place of work, it is important not only in the sense that he can detect breaches of the Factories Acts, but it is important in the positive sense that he can make suggestions, circulate ideas or draw to the attention of one firm the good practices being followed by another firm. He could help and advise on the establishment of joint safety committees.
I wonder to what extent any increase in the number of inspections will flow from this modest increase in the strength of the Inspectorate. It has recently been given new duties to carry out. Next March, in particular, the new regulations about building and civil engineering come into effect, and we all welcome them, but they will mean new burdens on the Inspectorate. To what extent will the increase in numbers enable the inspectors to do a more thorough job in terms of more frequent inspections?
We understand that the practice is to make a thorough investigation of every one of the premises registered under the Acts every four years and more frequently where there is extra danger. This standard of one inspection every four years simply will not do. It was in 1923 that the International Labour Organisation passed a recommendation that there should be annual inspection of premises at which people work. The Minister suggested to me only last week

in reply to a Question that modern developments had made that standard somewhat out of date. I do not believe that that is true. I would have thought that at least an annual inspection of every place of work should be aimed at.
The T.U.C., which recently sent a deputation to the Minister, suggested an immediate increase in the Inspectorate sufficient to enable it to inspect every place of work at least once every two years, with an annual inspection as the objective to be reached as soon as possible, realising that it would take time to build up the Inspectorate to that level. I can only say that I think that we ought to keep after the Government on this and urge that it should be done.
Now I would mention briefly a few other things that might be done. First, there was that very good point which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central about the need for more research, and the point my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South made, that the Government should really make use of their powers under Section 38 of the Act to compel certain firms and establishments to set up safety organisations. The Government ought to have the information to enable them to know where that should be done so that they can use those powers.
Then I should like to see the Government making much more vigorous use of public relations. The Department does issue some useful pamphlets. The series on "Accidents and How They Happen" was very useful, but to reach a wider public and raise the level of consciousness of the problems, and to make people on the work floor much more aware of them, we need more use of modern techniques—more films, time taken on television, things of that sort. To bring home to people the range of the problem requires the use of better and more up-to-date methods.
I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to what extent the Ministry is planning to have conferences in industries along the lines of the excellent conference which took place in October, in Newcastle, for the shipbuilding industry. It was a conference at which the Minister himself spoke, also the Chief Inspector of Factories and representatives from both sides of industry, and it was about


the problems of industrial safety in that industry. I would hope that th at useful exercise could be followed by similar conferences in other industries.
I come, in conclusion, to the problem of the young people. It is very disturbing indeed that, whereas there was a general increase in the number of industrial accidents in 1959 and 1960, there was a much larger proportionate increase among young workers, and it is particularly disturbing that this should happen just before the "bulge" in the number of the younger population begins to spill out on to the labour market. The number of young people leaving school and going into industry this year was one-quarter as much again as last year, and next year the number will be larger still.
This emphasises the need for much more careful training in safety of young people, throughout industry, as was indicated by my hon. Friends in their speeches. It also emphasises the need to have another look at the hours of work of young people. The T.U.C. has made approaches to the Minister on this problem, that the maximum hours of work of young people should be reduced. There is a connection between the rate of industrial accidents and the hours worked, and that should be studied.
There are many other things one would like to say about this problem, but in view of the passage of time I will say no more now. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that what we all expect from him and the Government are bold and constructive measures related to the seriousness of the problem.

2.55 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Alan Green): I am sure the whole House is grateful to the hon. Members for raising the subject of industrial accidents this afternoon. I particularly welcome discussion of this very important matter, and I shall do my best in the time I have to reply to what has been said.
I can first say this, that there is no difference within this House about the seriousness of the accident rate in industry; no difference at all. The proper subject for discussion is not whether the matter is serious, but what

is precisely the right way to go about getting an improvement. That is where entirely legitimate fields of discussion arise.
I hope to offer some of the statistical information for which I have been asked, but if I were to give it all I think we should be here a very long time, and perhaps I can do best by making this offer to hon. Members—I will most willingly at any time, by interview or by letter or by any other appropriate means, give very readily any information which I can in this field. I hope that with this promise I may hereafter be forgiven if I fail to give this afternoon any particular statistic for which I have been asked. This will allow me perhaps to get more to the principles of what we are discussing, rather than to get lost in the details.
One point has been clearly brought out—and again this is a matter on which we can all agree, and I am very glad of it and anxious to add my voice to it—and that is that hon. Members have explicitly and implicitly recognised the value of the work done by Her Majesty's Factory Inspectors. I am delighted that I myself can join in the tribute to the work they do. They have a tremendously long tradition; a terrific working knowledge of the day to day administration of the legislation which exists; and they enjoy, despite a sometimes rather difficult task, the great good will of both sides of industry—and it is of course most important that they should have this.
The hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) was quite right when he said that the increase of industrial accidents during 1960 was a source of very great concern, and my right hon. Friend has, as I think the House well knows, gone a very long way out of his way to publicise this very serious matter. I certainly do not think he can be accused of being in any way complacent or idle about it. It cannot be denied that 1960 was a thoroughly bad year from the accident point of view, and I certainly would not seek to say it was anything else. All of us, both inside and outside the House, must do our level best to see that industry is made safer for all who work in it.
All three hon. Members who have spoken consider that the best means of dealing with the rising accident total would be to increase the Factory Inspectorate—I think it was suggested that it should be doubled and that, as a further requirement, all employers should appoint a safety committee in every workplace. We are very much alive to the vital importance of enforcing the requirements of the Factories Acts. But in the nature of things, as the hon. and learned Member pointed out, the Inspectorate, even double, treble or quadruple its present size, could not be, so to speak, omnipresent; it could not be all the time at a place of work before an accident happened. One cannot get a cure-all by an increase in the size of the Inspectorate. The fact is that it is continually under review in a positive sense, as illustrated by the fact that since 1956 the increase in the size of the Inspectorate has been 25 per cent., the latest increase will be a further 8 per cent. Hon. Members quoted the number of the general inspectors as between 320 and 330. Following the latest increase in the strength, the number will be 393 in the general 'Inspectorate branch and some 87 in the specialist branch.
We can say, therefore, that we are alive to the need for an inspectorate large enough to fulfil its important functions, but there is a limit to the speed and to the size by which an Inspectorate of this kind can be increased if its essential characteristics are to be maintained and not diluted. That is a very important consideration. We cannot just double the number overnight and expect to get the same quality of work out of a vastly and rapidly expanded service.
I am sure that hon. Members agree—and I emphasise this point—that, in discussions of this kind, it would be a pity if there went out from the House any sort of suggestion that this was a readily solvable problem. It needs very much more than the Inspectorate itself to get the matter right.
The second suggestion was that employers should be compelled to have safety committees. We do not want to underestimate the value of these committees. Indeed we are very much in favour of them, as I hope to show. But it is our opinion that in this matter compulsion is not the answer. With a

safety committee, the important thing is to bring together people of enthusiasm and drive, and not merely set up a committee for the sake of having a committee. I maintain that neither hon. Members opposite nor I want a sort of paper exercise. We want a realistic conscientious and continuing drive by industry itself. That is what we are really after. In order to secure that, we believe that we must harness voluntary effort and enthusiasm. We do not deny—indeed, we have added to the number of regulations recently—that in certain areas and at certain times regulations are necessary. But we are very anxious not to drive out of existence the necessary voluntary effort within industry itself by too great an amount of regulation. I think that all of us are aware of the danger of doing this unless we are very careful.
What are we doing to try to harness industry's own enthusiasm for industry's own protection? After discussions with the British Employers' Confederation and the T.U.C., we are engaged in an approach to a number of important industries drawing attention to the seriousness of the accident problem and the proved value of accident prevention machinery. We hope that, as a result of these approaches there will be far more accident prevention machinery in industry than there is today. We intend that the Government shall play their part in giving advice and direct help through the Factory Inspectorate.
We have chosen this method because we think that accident prevention can best be approached on an industry by industry basis, so that those who have the same technical problems may consider them together and work out solutions suitable to a specific field of technical application. We think that this kind of self-help is likely to be much more effective in combating accidents, and, incidentally in setting up the kind of machinery which hon. Members have mentioned, than any other method, and we shall certainly not rest content until we are convinced that this fact has sunk in throughout industry. What we want is a great increase in safety consciousness on the part of all who work in industry, whether employer or employee.
It is not possible, as the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said,


to compel people to be safety minded. That, in a sense, is a sad truth. It would be much easier if it were possible to achieve, by regulation, a change in the attitude of employers—who are of course primarily responsible—and work people. We all know many cases where the old "familiarity breeds contempt" attitude is taken, when, for instance, necessary safety clothing simply ceases to be worn by people who become so certain that the bullet will never strike them but always the chap next door.
Thus, it is from everybody engaged in industry that we want a continuing and actively conscious attitude towards safety. As the House is probably aware, no less than 65 per cent. of all accidents reported in 1960 arose from simple human errors such as falling, clumsy handling, or letting hammers drop. In other words, 65 per cent. of all this distressing total arises from straightfoward carelessness and clumsiness.
I am not taking bad luck as a good excuse for a high accident rate. Carelessness is a main cause, but it is not the only cause of this horrible industrial accident rate. I agree that it is of the greatest importance that employers and work people should get together to discuss safety and that the safety committee has an important part to play in this. I was asked for figures on this subject. As a result of a count which we have completed we find that the total number of safety committees operating in 1961 was 2,274. There were during the same period 4,000 factories which had safety officers. Without going into the enormous mass of detail which I have, I can say that it is clear that the larger factories more frequently have safety committees and safety officers than the small ones. This, of course, is what one would expect to find. We should like to see more of them and I hope that the publicity provided by this debate will give some impetus towards their creation.

Dr. Stross: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not finish without talking about co-operation between Government Departments, who ought to do their duty.

Mr. Green: I hope not to keep the House too long but I want to refer to the building and civil engineering industries where the position is extremely

serious. These industries represent one-eighth of those which come under the Factory Acts and account for one-third of fatal accidents.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has recently made two important new codes of regulations which for the first time cover the construction industries as a whole. Further codes are being prepared. It is therefore reasonable to claim that the Government are making an active move into this field, as we have been asked to do. We are already doing it and I have had informal talks with some of the representatives of both sides of these industries. A meeting of the Joint Advisory Committee on Safety and Health in the Building and Civil Engineering Industries, of which I am chairman, is arranged for 30th January. Therefore, we are genuinely doing a lot more in this direction than we are sometimes credited with doing.
But we want to make a reality of the regulations. We just do not want a paper exercise. My personal concern therefore is to try to secure that when the regulations come into force they are complied with in an effective fashion. This, of course, is not always very simple. There are difficulties for employers and employees in these matters and I will do my best to see that these difficulties are overcome.
I want to refer to co-operation between Government Departments, with particular reference to the position for young people—which is serious. Earlier this year the Minister of Education brought the matter once again to the attention of local education authorities, particularly in connection with safety training at schools and technical colleges. I am confident that this will have useful results, but it is just as important to remember that safety training should be continued when young people go from schools or technical colleges for the first time into factories. Employers should recognise their special responsibility for giving induction training to young entrants. We are all agreed about this. There is nothing like "kerb" drill, as it were, at an early age for getting into the good habits which will last a lifetime.
I agree that certain matters raised by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent,


Central (Dr. Stross) about the collection of statistics, their analysis, and the use that may be made of them are extremely important. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept my assurance this afternoon that we are not overlooking what the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, in conjunction with ourselves and others, may be able to do about this.
I hope that I have covered the matters of principle which I started out to do without delving too much into detail on this very detailed subject.
Perhaps I might conclude by quoting from the 1956 Report of the Industrial Safety Sub-Committee of the National Joint Advisory Council a passage which seems to me to sum up the position:
Invaluable as legislation and other enforcement work of the Factory Department must continue to be, the standards of safety reached in industry depend mainly on the efforts made at all levels within industry itself to prevent accidents. To secure a further substantial reduction in the incidence of accidents, there must be more vigorous, more extensive, more sustained, better organised, and better informed voluntary action by everyone in industry—Planners, designers, managers, technicians, research workers, supervisors and workers all have an important contribution to make. The idea of considering safety in all aspects of industrial activity must so permeate industry that everybody will find his opportunity, in his ordinary clay-to-day work, to make industry a safer place.
This is what I devoutly hope will happen, and it is to that end that my right hon. Friend is directing some strenuous and conscientious effort.

COTTON TEXTILE INDUSTRY

3.12 p.m.

Sir John Barlow: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for giving us an opportunity to debate the question of the Lancashire cotton textile industry this afternoon. I very much welcome the presence of the President of the Board of Trade, who I gather is likely to answer the debate, because he has acquired a greater knowledge of this industry than any other President of the Board of Trade since the war. Not only is his constituency not very far from a cotton area, but he has been in the textile trade for a time at least, and I gather that during his visit to Lancashire a fortnight ago he acquired a great deal of knowledge.
In addition, I am delighted to see present the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, because I know that he is taking a great deal of interest in the Lancashire textile industry and that he has a great deal to do with the day-to-day handling of this work. We are very fortunate to have with us the President of the Board of Trade and the Parliamentary Secretary.
To get the industry into perspective, I think that it is necessary first to give a few figures. Obviously some of them are estimates, but I do not think that they are very far out, although of course we are dealing with very large figures.
About forty years ago this industry was the largest of its kind in the world. It produced about 8,000 million square yards of cloth a year, of which about 80 per cent. were exported. That represents probably the largest exporting industry that any country has ever had, and I believe that it was one of the most well organised export industries that anyone has ever built up.
For that reason, when other exporting industries today are finding difficulties, I urge them to look back and see what was done in those days in Lancashire. Not only was 80 per cent. of the production at that time exported, but it amounted to approximately 24 per cent. of the total exports of this country. In view of the difficulty with exports today, what would not the Government give to have a similar thriving textile industry?
By 1938 the yardage produced had halved; it was about 4,000 million yards, and half of that was exported. According to the latest information our production rate is now only about 1,300 million yards a year. We are importing at the rate of about 850 million yards a year, and our exports amount to 300 million yards a year. That means that at the present rate we are consuming—or we have a stock at home—about 550 million yards of overseas cloth. In addition, we are importing 50 million lbs. of yarn. We probably have in stock about 140 million or even 200 million yards of cloth.
During the last forty years the industry has suffered greatly as a result of this diminution in output. It has had its ups and down, and four years ago the Government recognised the difficulties of


the industry, which were partially due to the loss of overseas markets but also due to the increasing imports from overseas countries. Most of the imports came from eastern mills, which had installed modern machinery and were staffed by cheap eastern labour. Many of the mills—as the President of the Board of Trade knows, having been over some Chinese ones—work for as many as 350 or even 360 days a year. The machinery is running practically twenty-four hours a day, and the work is on a three shift basis. The machinery is stopped only to enable it to be cleaned.
About four years ago our chief competition from Commonwealth countries came from India, Pakistan and Hong Kong. India had a natural advantage, in that it had home-grown cotton—which was at times subsidised by the Indian Government—and very cheap labour. The competition from Japan, which started about thirty-five years ago, has been fairly constant in recent years, as it is subject to quota. By an inter-industry agreement the imports from India, Pakistan and Hong Kong were limited in 1958 to 377 million yards a year for a three-year period. That has now been extended to December, 1962, but the yardage has been increased to 420 million yards, which comes in free—and that excludes yarn but includes made-up goods.
After the India-Hong Kong agreement the Government rightly introduced the Cotton Industry Reorganisation Bill, the object of which was to encourage mills with old or inefficient machinery to close down, and to increase machinery utilisation and efficiency. Far too many of our mills were running on a single shift, which, with modern expensive machinery, meant a great wastage of capital. In addition, accelerated re-equipment and modernisation generally were of the utmost importance.
Having fought two world wars we had suffered through not constantly bringing the equipment of our mills up to date. As a result of the reorganisation scheme, or redundancy scheme as it is sometimes known, nearly half of the spindles in Lancashire and about 40 per cent. of the looms have been destroyed.

The re-equipment for which the Government were going to pay 25 per cent., started off very well indeed. But then, within a short time, imports came from unexpected places which had never shipped to this country before.
I should like to mention a few to show the large increase in such imports. Spain last year shipped 64 million yards. In 1959 the figure was under 10 million, and two years ago, in 1958, it was only 1 million. From Japan we received 52 million yards last year. From Portugal we received 18 million yards, compared with less than 250,000 yards the previous year. Yugoslavia sent 12 million yards compared with a figure of 6 million in 1959, and last year Formosa, a new country to enter this trade, sent us 12 million yards in six months.
I wish to emphasise that, owing to the loss of exports, the amount of cloth brought into the country has a severe effect on the national economy. Generally speaking, we import nearly half of our foodstuffs and most of our raw materials. I feel that we are importing far too many finished or semifinished materials. This is a case in point. Instead of exporting over 6,000 million yards of cloth forty years ago, we now have a net import of about 550 million yards, which I think is deplorable.
This has come about for various reasons. One thing which did not help the efficiency of Lancashire textiles, including the trade in which I am particularly interested, was the action of the Chancellor last spring in increasing the duty on heavy fuel oil. It will be recalled that this duty was increased by 2d. a gallon. In the printed cloth section of the industry an enormous amount of fuel is used owing to the constant heating and re-heating necessary to provide the required processes. Many years ago the only fuel used was coal. But the industry gradually moved over to the use of oil, and when there was a serious shortage of coal, the company with which I am connected turned over entirely to oil. The extra cost involved by the increase of 2d. a gallon on the duty amounted to £194,000. I believe that we are among the largest users of fuel oil in the north-west area. The increase in print costs is 3·5 per cent.,


which is considerable with a large export trade. Probably half our print is normally exported.
At the time of the introduction of the Government redundancy scheme it was estimated that the whole cost to the Government might amount to as much as £30 million, but at present it would appear that the cost may be £18 million. Of course, there is time for more people to opt to reorganise and re-equip and so the figure may approach £30 million, although that does not appear likely at the moment.
One of the objects of this redundancy scheme was to achieve greater efficiency. I am told that in the first quarter of 1961 the machinery utilisation activity was about 93 per cent., which compares with the highest annual percentage of 80 per cent. since the war. Therefore, it appears that, with modernised equipment, the industry is becoming more efficient. Part of this efficiency may be due to the three-shift running, but it is difficult in this country to achieve three shifts. Obviously, women do not work during the night. It has been the custom of the trade sometimes to use married women for a portion of the day, but in a country in which there is fairly full employment it is extraordinarily difficult to organise three shifts a day when so many people do not like working through the night.
When a firm has built up and is working satisfactorily, if there is a serious lack of orders some of that labour has to be released. It is then impossible to get back to the previous situation. It is a very serious drawback to the industry if, having as a result of a redundancy scheme once got things working smoothly with greater efficiency, it has to fall back and close mills. I am told that a hundred mills will close for a week over Christmas time, which is not normally a long holiday. I believe that twenty-nine units of the larger combines have closed down definitely and in addition forty-three smaller firms have closed entirely. They did not feel that they could or should re-equip and try to make a go of it.

Mr. Leslie Hale: Oldham Junior Chamber of Commerce, which certainly is not a partisan organisation, told me that, in the Oldham area and some adjoining areas

which the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir J. Barlow) will know, the effective short-time employment—quite apart from Christmas, for it was long before then—was already of the order of 10 per cent.

Sir J. Barlow: I have not got that figure, but I well believe it. As the hon. Member said that was some little time ago, I should think that it is greater than that now.
I have tried to give an outline of the present state of the industry. The industry is prepared to compete on equal terms with Western nations which have Western salaries and Western standards of living, provided that they do not enjoy subsidies or unequal tariffs. Lancashire is definitely prepared for that competition and feels able to meet it, but there are such countries as Spain which have recently come into this business and exported enormous amounts to this country. They have fairly cheap labour, a much lower standard of living and definitely subsidised cotton.
That problem arose quickly about a year ago. I believe that the Cotton Board approached the Board of Trade with a view to bringing the anti-dumping machinery into operation. I believe, but I cannot be sure, that the Board of Trade urged that the industry should negotiate itself. Naturally one industry negotiating for itself with that very weak background would not carry anything like the weight of the Government negotiating with an anti-dumping Act behind it. For that reason, the result was a reduction of the 30 per cont. agreed upon. I do not think anyone can call that a satisfactory solution.
I should like to quote very briefly from the speech which the Chairman of the Cotton Board made about a fortnight ago. Lord Rochdale was speaking to the Manchester Statistical Society. I think that those in the industry all acknowledge the great work which Lord Rochdale has done to help the cotton industry. He is a man from outside—he was a wool man, of course—and his knowledge of that industry has helped him enormously in coping with the problems of the cotton industry. He said:
I must say no other Western country exposes its industry in this way. Non-Commonwealth suppliers, such as Spain and


Portugal, and also the Iron Curtain countries, including China, sell at political prices which are based on currency needs and bear no relation to cost.
I think that he means by "political prices" that when the Iron Curtain countries need a certain currency they sell enough goods in that country to get the currency required quite apart from cost, subsidies or anything else. Incidentally, it is most difficult to prove costs, because we cannot easily get the information required.
I have criticised the Government for not using the anti-dumping Act sufficiently. I well remember that, when the Bill was going through the House, the President of the Board of Trade, who is now the Minister of Education, said that he wanted an Act which he could use immediately, and by which he could stop the imports of goods almost overnight, before the damage was done. I have looked up the Second Reading speech, and there are three small extracts which I should like to read. He said:
… the consumer has a real and permanent interest in maintaining steady sources of supply. The consumer is not served if our market is disrupted by ruthless and unpredictable sales below cost".
He went to say:
… the Board could take the initiative itself under this Bill … However the process was started, the Board would urgently consider whether a prima facie case had been made out … in the exceptional case, where it was perfectly clear that serious damage was being done,"—
we
lay an order at once."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd January, 1957; Vol. 563, c. 58 and 61.]
It is suggested in Lancashire that the Board of Trade say that this Act is not sufficient to meet the requirements to stop this kind of importation into Lancashire.
If that Act is not sufficient, I respectfully suggest that the Government should pass some suitable legislation. Not only in this industry but in many other industries as well we shall find, in the near future, that it is of the greatest importance to have some method by which the Government could act quickly. I believe that it did so in the case of butter. To Lancashire the use of this Act has been very disappointing. In addition to the competition which we are experiencing already, there may easily

be cloth sent from other countries, such as Malta, Singapore and Nigeria, in the future, and I urge that the Government should make provision to deal with such cases before they arise and not wait until this becomes a really important matter. Yugoslavia has sent us a lot of cloth but it is virtually impossible to prove costs to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade.
Another type of dumping is sometimes experienced from the United States where there is enormous production and sometimes over-production. The Americans have a habit, when suffering from surplus stocks, of suddenly dumping them in this country for a month or two and then, when the stocks have dried up, nothing more is done. I am told that the Board of Trade takes the attitude that dumping over such a short time will not do much harm to the trade, but I disagree entirely with that. Severe dumping for a short time upsets the market and brings prices down, and it takes a considerable time to re-establish confidence among the buyers—the wholesalers, the middle men, the shopkeepers and the purchasers. We see that not only in cloth but in practically all commodities, such as wheat, rubber, tea, and tin. If there is sudden short-term heavy dumping it can destroy the market for a long time. I urge the Board of Trade to look at the way in which Canada checks for cost of production and dumping. Canada has very effective methods which might be helpful if adopted by the Board of Trade.
As other hon. Members wish to speak, I will be brief. Having provided a cotton redundancy scheme which is working admirably, the Government have left the industry in the lurch when unforeseen imports arrive in unexpected quantities, which in many cases are subsidised or dumped. The industry has spent vast sums of capital, and is willing to spend more, on modernising and re-equipping, providing that it has confidence. It is not asking the Government for more money but for the normal support which is given by every other Western Government. Do the Government wish to provide for a very small industry? As far as I know, they have never given an indication. Do they wish us to be self-sufficient in cloth? Do they wish us to cut down to a half or a quarter of the present consumption in


this country? As far as I am aware, they have never given an indication. If they would only do that, the industry would know where it stood and would get on with the job. That would be very much better than leaving us as we have been left for so long.
I believe that it is utterly wrong to leave the industry in a permanent vacuum, for that saps and destroys the confidence of the workers, the management and the investors. I earnestly hope that the Minister will indicate this afternoon what size of industry he thinks is proper for this country and what measures he proposes to achieve it.

3.38 p.m.

Mr. H. Rhodes: May I say a few words about the antidumping legislation? It was brought in at a time when there was very little anti-dumping legislation in any country in Europe and in the hope that other European countries would follow suit—although for what purpose I do not know, because the provisions in the Act were impossible to use to protect an industry such as the cotton industry. First, before the Board of Trade can take any action, an aggrieved person, firm or industry in this country has to show that the price of the articles complained about are appreciably cheaper here than in the country of origin. Secondly, the question of the country of origin provisions was never satisfactorily settled.
In view of the type of legislation which exists in one or two Common Market countries now the Government would do well, before they go further with their arrangements to enter the Common Market, to bring into the open the legislation which exists in Europe on this point. The problem will grow worse during the course of the next few months. In view of what we read about Japan's interest in exporting cloth and goods here, and in view of the Government's atitude towards Japan, and that they are considering granting most-favoured-nation treatment, it is about time that we had a re-casting of the Act.
Politics have entered too much into the examination of the industry's economics. The hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir J. Barlow) dragged politics in again today. He finished his speech today in the same way as he finished his speeches before the 1958 slump. As soon as the Tory Government

promised the earth in terms of money for scrapping machinery and for re-equipment, the hon. Gentleman was perfectly satisfied; he thought they were a wonderful Government until now. It is true that, unless political decisions are made about the industry, it will continue to contract until there is no industry at all. The argument should be concentrated on what decisions should best be made so that the industry, or what remains of it, can make up its mind what to do.
During the last two years the industry has received a great deal of assistance. It scrapped machinery and received money for doing so. The money went into pockets which did not need it. Much of it went into the coffers of firms which could have done the job for themselves. It is a bitter pill to see the industry again making approaches to the House of Commons after the generous treatment that the Tory Government accorded them in the period leading up to the 1959 General Election.
If any Government gave a real political boost to an industry and an area, it was the Tory Government in 1958 and 1959. It started with the Prime Minister going to the Cotton Board Conference in 1958, and announcing that a scheme would be introduced in the early part of 1959. Legislation was rushed through the House. It had to be on the Statute Book before the Recess so that the then President of the Board of Trade could go to Lancashire and boast about what the Government had done and say, in effect, "Please return even more Tory candidates". We know that that did not happen.
If the industry really got to work and worked three shifts, it still would not on the present basis, be able to compete. If I were the President of the Board of Trade, I should not do a thing for the industry unless it was able to show it could compete with the cotton industry of at least one Common Market country—for example, the Dutch cotton industry, which is well-equipped. I understand that 26s cotton which is imported into this country from Holland comes over a tariff of 17½ per cent. and can be sold in this country at 81½d. a pound less than it can be bought in Lancashire. If this is so, it is about time the industry pulled up its socks and found out for


itself what it can do before seeking political remedies unless the Industry runs three shifts and puts in the most up-to-date machinery. Investors had better look for something else to put their money in. We are not now pleading for redundant labour either. The intelligent cotton worker can easily find a job elsewhere and has done so.
I agree that it is easier for countries to export to the United Kingdom than to anywhere else in the world. Our imports of cotton textiles have been on a grossly unfair scale. But at the same time, we must insist that the cotton people must make themselves efficient by the best European standards, then Government can begin to talk. Increasing the standard of living of the Spaniards by admitting their cotton textiles to this country gives me no satisfaction when I know perfectly well that they receive a subsidy of 8½ cents on every lb. of cotton they buy from America. On the other hand, I think that this time the industry must put its own house in order before the Government do anything more to help it.

3.48 p.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll): I am grateful, as I am sure the whole House is, to my hon. Friend the Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir J. Barlow), for introducing this important debate, and I am particularly grateful to him for his kind remarks about myself and his references to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary.
I am sorry that time makes it impossible for me to delay my reply so as to enable hon. Members representing cotton constituencies to say something, but I am sure that their constituents will be glad to know that the hon. Members for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) are all in their places, and would have spoken had they had the opportunity. I am glad, too, that my hon. Friend referred to Lord Rochdale and, thereby, to the Cotton Board. Lord Rochdale has done an outstanding job as Chairman of the Board, and the Board itself deserves a tribute for the excellent way in which it has carried out its many difficult tasks.
I went to Manchester for the day on 8th December, and had a very useful

series of talks with different branches of the industry. As I told them, I went there to learn and, at the same time, to outline the Government's policy. Lancashire lived up to its traditional reputation for plain speaking, and I was told bluntly, and very clearly, what people there thought. The result was that I came away with a greater knowledge of the industry than the little I had previously possessed.
There is no doubt, as I was told there and as I have heard again today, that the main problem is one of imports, and I shall deal with that first. The import figures are substantial, but not quite as bad as my hon. Friend stated. I understood him to say that imports were running at a rate of 850 million square yards in 1961. The annual rate for 1961 is, in fact, 757 million square yards and, of that, 216 million square yards are grey cloth imported for further processing and re-exporting, so that total retained imports amount to 541 million square yards.
It is a mistake, when people refer to total imports, to do so without making the necessary qualification that a substantial part is for re-export. The manufacturers of grey cloth in Lancashire have no objection to this import for re-export. I am not seeking to minimise the seriousness of the import problem, but hon. Members must remember that in the case of non-Commonwealth countries the tariff for cotton textiles, as for other industries, should be the Government's main weapon for protecting the industry. The tariff for grey cloth is 17½ per cent., and this applies to all cloth other than that coming from Commonwealth countries.
In the case of the three main Commonwealth exporters—India, Pakistan and Hong Kong—inter-industry agreements have been arrived at whereby a system of voluntary restraint on shipments to Britain has been agreed to. In the case of certain other countries, where competition would be at low cost, and a tariff different from the present level might not be sufficiently effective, there is a variety of arrangements taking the form of quota restrictions We have a quota applying to shipments from Japan, China, Formosa and—moving around the globe, so to speak—since Spain was referred to earlier, there is a voluntary


inter-industry agreement which has cut back Spanish shipments to Britain by 30 per cent.

Mr. Rhodes: I am interested in what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but since he has recited the countries to which quotas apply, would he say whether the arrangements he has made in recent weeks with Japan are in preparation for the quota system with Japan being dropped?

Mr. Erroll: There is obviously nothing I can say about the negotiations for new trade arrangements with Japan while those negotiations are still taking place.

Mr. Rhodes: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman say anything at all about them?

Mr. Erroll: I cannot say more until the negotiations are finished.
The position, therefore, is that there is a pattern—albeit a somewhat irregular one—of restraint on imports from the producing countries of the world with the exception, of course, of Western Europe. The tariff of 17½ per cent. should be sufficient protection against European manufactured textiles flowing from countries in which the standards of living are comparable with those of our own.
I was particularly interested in the remarks of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) concerning the Dutch textile industry. Substantially smaller than our own, it is efficient, well-organised and capable of sending us goods over the 17½ per cent. tariff. Holland does not impose restrictions on the import of Hong Kong textiles into the Netherlands.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: What about the position if we enter the Common Market?

Mr. Erroll: That is in the future. I am dealing with the present. It is significant that, despite tariff protection, imports came in from Western Europe to the extent of 60 million square yards last year, whereas we were able to sell to Western European countries only about 4 million square yards. The Lancashire cotton textile industry should ponder on these rather disturbing figures.
Imports are high and serious, but it is important to realise that retained

imports have been falling during last year and now, in the third quarter of this year, are considerably lower than the first quarter. They were 166 million square yards retained in the first quarter, 138 million square yards retained in the second quarter, and 120 square yards retained in the third quarter. I mentioned tariffs as being the main protective instrument, but the Government are not resting content with that. In the Conference on Textiles, at Geneva, we have signified our acceptance of what is called, colloquially, the "Short-Term Agreement" whereby all the countries concerned have agreed that if low-cost imports were to increase to such an extent as to cause disruption, or even threaten to do so, to the domestic industry, they would agree to cut back shipments to the 1960 level and the receiving country would have the power to impose restrictions. At Geneva, also, there is a conference, at the moment at a technical level, discussing long-term arrangements for the orderly movement of textiles between member countries. We are, naturally, playing our full part in that.
I want to turn to the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act, 1957, which was criticised on both sides of the House. This Act is really, again to put it colloquially, an anti-material injury Act and not an anti-dumping Act as such. In other words, if a product is sold here at below the cost at which it would be sold in the country of origin, that on its own is not a sufficient reason for imposing an anti-dumping duty, because the public get the benefit of the cheap products. The purpose of the Act is to impose an anti-dumping duty if such dumped goods cause material injury or a threat of material injury to the domestic producer in this country.
We in the Board of Trade, of course, cannot know whether a domestic industry is suffering material injury or is threatened with it until those in the industry tell us about it. I am for ever telling industries who grumble and complain about the ineffectiveness of the Act that they do not help to make it effective by staying away and not telling us what their troubles are. I put that point strongly to the different meetings that I had in Manchester at the beginning of this month, and I hope that people will not hesitate to come and tell us at


the earliest possible opportunity what the problem is and enable us to see in what ways we can help them.
It is sometimes difficult to find out the ruling price in the country of origin, but here again, particularly with regard to the Communist bloc countries, where the market prices are difficult to ascertain, we would be very glad to help them and show them the sort of way in which they should present their applications.
We are anxious to help industry, and not just the cotton industry, in securing their rights under this Act. There is a good deal of misunderstanding which can only be cleared up by talks between trade associations and by officials who are ready and willing to embark upon such talks.

Mr. Rhodes: Would the right hon. Gentleman deal with the matter of the country of origin? Does he think that the provisions in the Act relating to the country of origin are adequate?

Mr. Erroll: I am not quite clear what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. The point is that the proof must be given of the price in this country being below the price ruling in the country of origin.

Mr. Rhodes: No, that is not the point. The point is, which really is the country of origin of the material? There was an argument as to whether it should be on a percentage basis or on a processed basis.

Mr. Erroll: Yes, that is a complication. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not try to go into that question now in view of the time.

Mr. Leslie Hale: This debate started at eleven minutes past the hour. The right hon. Gentleman keeps looking at the clock. He has not said a word about the future. The real trouble is uncertainty. My hon. Friend has put a point about the Common Market and we want to know something about it. If Holland can get over a 17½ per cent. tariff, if German and French trade is expanding, if world trade in textiles is expanding and we are contracting, what do the Government say about that?

Mr. Erroll: I think that the position about the Common Market is clear to hon. Members. It is that negotiations are only just beginning, although we have applied for membership and hon. Members know just what such membership would entail. So should the Lancashire cotton industry know. I do not see why Lancashire need be in any way inferior to the Dutch, German, or French textile industries, operating in roughly similar conditions.
I have referred to the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act and explained its limitations. I have also explained that we would be glad to help industry with its applications.
I turn now to re-equipment and redundancy. My hon. Friend referred to the £30 million as being the amount which the Government said they would spend on redundancy and re-equipment together. That figure was always intended to be an indication of the maximum amount which would be spent. It was not meant to imply that £30 million had to be spent.

Mr. Rhodes: That is not correct. I have read thoroughly the Report of the Public Accounts Committee which investigated this matter. The senior official from the Board of Trade who gave evidence to the Committee said that there was no maximum figure.

Mr. Erroll: It was a figure given as an indication of what was thought likely. I quite agree that I should not, perhaps, have used the word "maximum" as meaning that we should simply turn off the tap when £30 million was reached. I am sorry if I conveyed that impression. It was regarded as the likely figure. Equally, it is not intended to be a minimum figure. If the amount does not go up to £30 million, there will be no question of scraping round to find some way to spend a so-called unallocated balance.
The position so far is that redundancy payments amount to about £12½ million and applications for re-equipment grant—which, I think, are much more important now—amount to £35½ million, of which the Government's contribution would be about £8·9 million. Thus, about £20 million has already been spent or allocated for the purpose. There is still more than six months to go for applications for re-equipment grant to be


received, so the final figure may well be higher than the one I have announced.
When one talks of redundancy and re-equipment, one naturally goes on to the question of the size and structure of the industry. My hon. Friend asked whether the Board of Trade would say what size it thought the industry ought to be. I was asked that several times in Manchester. I want to make quite clear that it is not the job of the Government to go about telling different industries what size they ought to be, whether they ought to be large or small. That is for the individual industry.

Mr. Hale: Why not?

Mr. Erroll: I know that the Labour Government did that sort of thing, but we do not believe in running the economy in that way.
We think that a much higher industrial efficiency is attained in Britain if we let each industry find its own right size, which it will do in accordance with the determination of all the people engaged in it. There will be no question of the Government determining an artificial or predetermined size for an industry and trying to make it fit that size. We do not believe in running the economy that way.
What did interest me in my visit was that, instead of having one meeting, I had to have a series of meetings with different sections of the industry. Of course, I was familiar with what is called the horizontal structure of the industry which, I know, has its roots deep in history, but the fact is that, while it would be very difficult to make changes at the present time, the horizontal structure is, on the whole, a weak one. It means that in many cases the finishers and the producers are not really in direct contact with their customers.
I met the organisation representing the merchants, and a very keen and alert body of men they are, fully alive to the advantages to be got from keen selling on narrow margins. But the trouble about having the merchants, in a sense, standing between producers and customers—or, as the defenders of the system would say, having them applying their specialised skill in marketing—is that Lancashire's prices tend to go up rather rapidly in a time of shortage of products—

Mr. Rhodes: Hear, hear.

Mr. Erroll: —because demand is always running ahead and, therefore, there tends to be over-buying at times of rising prices. Then, when demand falls away, prices tend to be unnecessarily depressed because of the excessive volume of unsold stocks hanging over the market. That is simply a fact of the situation.
We in the Board of Trade have been trying to do something about this. The first thing needed is knowledge. What is the size of the stocks at any given time? Even that is not known in the industry, and the industry has not been able to organise itself to find out. We have worked with the industry to try to reach some arrangement for providing statistics of stocks. The Grey Cloth Importers' Association has proved very co-operative in this difficult and complicated exercise.
I have talked about imports. I come now to a few words about exports. Of course, we are very sorry about the loss of export markets, but I believe that there are export opportunities which some firms are undoubtedly taking. I am sure that there are many more export opportunities. One of the important things is to consider new markets rather than bewail the loss of some old ones.
One clothmaker told me how disappointing it was not to be able to sell his highly specialised and expensive material to India and wanted to know why we did not persuade the Indians to stop imposing import controls. It is no good bemoaning the loss of that market. India will maintain her import controls as long as she has to do so. His object ought to be to consider other markets, particularly those in Western Europe and North America. Perhaps he is already doing so. I do not wish to do him an injustice. There was not time for me to question him more thoroughly and I only mention the case to illustrate what the industry can do to find new export markets.
Finally, let me say a few words about the future. I was asked in Manchester and I have been asked today what is the Government's policy. I have been criticised on the ground that the Government have lost interest in the cotton industry.


In fact, the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne intimated that once the General Election was over we lost interest in the industry. That is not the case, and I am glad to rebut that somewhat unfair insinuation.
Our policy remains the same. We wish to see an efficient and prosperous cotton textile industry as part of Britain's economy. We will, therefore, continue to apply, where appropriate, restraints on imports and to help in the application of inter-industry agreements. We will implement our undertakings in connection with re-equipment, which I have dealt with in some detail today, and will represent Britain's interests at Geneva during the two conferences which I have mentioned. However, the future of the industry lies in the hands of the workers, designers, salesmen, managers and directors in the industry. It is they who will finally decide the future of their great industry rather than the Government.

SCIENTIFIC MANPOWER

4.7 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Skeffington: I think it not important that this part of the Session of Parliament should conclude with a general discussion on science and scientists. It is often felt by many people outside that Parliament is still too much in the grip of classicists who only reluctantly admit that science and scientists have a profound effect on the fortunes of Britain. If that is true to any degree—listening to some of the debates, I feel that there is an element of truth in it—this House and the Government would be out of touch with the world and reality. Parliament must give an increasing and much greater proportion of its time in future than it has in the past to considering many of the scientific problems which confront us.
Some of my hon. Friends and myself felt that the Report entitled "The Long-term Demand for Scientific Manpower" was a very important document which should be discussed in the House. Not only is it important, but it has achieved great notoriety because of its somewhat surprising conclusion—surprising to many experts who have studied the

problem—in paragraph 75 of its Report, in which it states
that the overall supply and demand for qualified manpower will not be very much out of balance at the end of the first five years of the decade 1960–70.
This conclusion has been seized on with joy by all those who think that we have got over all the difficulties and need not worry much about this matter and viewed with dismay and even anger by a number of universities and principals of technical establishments and, indeed, by many scientists. Both of those points of view may well be wrong. I believe that the statistical Committee which produced this document has performed a very useful statistical exercise. It has done it with diligence and, I think, with great ingenuity.
I should like to make the general point that we are very well served by all those many distinguished experts who serve on the various committees of the Advisory Council for Scientific Policy and on the main Council itself. They give devoted and disinterested service which is a fine contribution to public life. We are all grateful, as, I am sure, the Government and the country are, for the work they do.
When the Ministry gets these reports, quite apart from the specific one which I am raising today, I often wonder what it does with them. We certainly never have much opportunity of discussing them in this House. I do not recall a discussion on any of the Annual Reports of the Committee. Nearly always such references as are made are done on the initiative of back-bench Members, very often on this side of the House, although I know that the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) is very interested also. No doubt, the Parliamentary Secretary may be able to say something, not only about his appreciation of the work done by the Committee, but how the Reports are generally used and whether he is in favour of the idea of having a regular annual occasion on which to discuss these valuable documents; otherwise, some of the members of the Committee must wonder what happens to the result of their efforts.
The Report is a competent and intelligent attempt to forecast requirements of scientific manpower for the years ahead. We nevertheless believe that it may to


some extent have clouded the situation and that the conclusions drawn from it by some are not warranted by the facts. Some of the Committee's conclusions could have a damaging effect upon the policy of the Government and the attitude of the public to the problem of scientific manpower and how to train it. In any event it is always dangerous to make statistical estimates of the future. We have had many examples in the past of such estimates proving disastrous. It is rather like flying in the face of providence to try statistically to forecast what a situation will be in five or, even more so, in ten years' time. I am not making a party point in recalling the famous occasion in 1955 when the present Minister of Health said that we were within twelve months of reaching a situation when the number of dwellings would roughly equate the demand for them. We all know that that certainly has not been borne out by the fact in London or elsewhere. There was the estimate made in 1950 of the number of teachers required which proved to be lamentably short of the number in fact required.
More recently, perhaps, and pertinent to the point I am making, was the 1957 Report of the Willink Committee about the number of doctors that would be required. That Committee came to the optimistic conclusion that in 1955, medical schools were producing too many doctors and a 10 per cent. reduction in the number of students was recommended. A few years later, we discovered how wrong that estimate was and that we could only maintain the Health Service in the hospitals by increased recruitment of doctors trained abroad. I say nothing against them—they have done splendid work—but the fact is that we had to rely on doctors trained outside the country. Indeed, more than 50 per cent. of all emergency operations in the hospitals had to be done by doctors who were not trained here. The result is that the recommendation has been altered and the Government have had to encourage a 10 per cent. increase in the number of students to get us back to the position when, eventually, although it will be a long time yet, we may produce sufficient doctors at home for our requirements.
That has been a salutary experience for the Nation, although I should have thought that it was a good deal easier to estimate the number of doctors required than to try to forecast the requirements for scientists over a vast field in which new developments take place daily.
Having talked about the general difficulty and danger, I want now to come to some of the specific assumptions which must be questioned. At page 20 of its Report, the Committee assumes at paragraph 71 (a) that there will be suitable school-leavers who
wish to enter higher education in sufficient numbers.
The university population is expected to rise to 170,000 in the early 'seventies and plans have been laid to that end, and we all hope that that target will be reached. On the other hand, we are nowhere near the target, for the number of those students taking advanced courses, either sandwich courses or courses in institutes of advanced technology, which will have to rise from 8,000 to 26,000 or 27,000 by 1970. So far as I understand it, the Government have announced an increase in the number of places in those types of institution of only about 14,000, so there is a very big gap here between the additional places which will be required, and those being provided. I would hope that the Minister can say something about this. If this gap is not planned and filled quickly there will obviously be a serious short-fall on this side of the estimates.
However, I think a much greater difficulty arises in accepting this assumption from that part of the paragraph which talks of
suitable school leavers who wish to enter higher education".
I assume by the word "suitable" is meant students willing and qualified to do so.
In the science debate on 10th July I drew attention to the really catastrophic position of mathematics teachers. I quoted on that occasion Professor Thwaites, who reported on 23rd May this year that it was found that there was a shortage of mathematics teachers in 800 out of 990 schools. He said:
The fact is that in a single year there was on the average a shortage of mathematics staff of nearly 50 per cent. in some 800 schools".


He went on to say that he put the present deficiency as equalling for the universities at least one year's total output of Ph.D.s and in the grammar schools at least three years' total output of graduate mathematicians. On page 31 of his Report he said:
The disappearance of properly organised mathematics teaching has consequences for science and so ultimately for the life of the whole nation so appalling they need no emphasis from me.
That is the position reported by an eminent authority in May of this year. Is it possible that the Committee really can safely afford to assume that in the short space of time action has been taken which has remedied or will remedy the shortage in the period under review? Because the Committee suggests that the balance of supply will be right in four years from now, with the possibility of a surplus afterwards. This seems to me such a big assumption that it must be questioned, if it is wrong that, calculations in the Report will be wrong. I hope the Minister will say something about that.
There are two other minor assumptions in this part of the Report which I must mention. One is this. Apparently the Committee assumed that the number of students from overseas who are trained here and who will return to their own countries will remain constant. I think that that may be wrong, and I should be very sorry if it were right. I would have thought that one preeminently suitable task which we could perform for Commonwealth countries, particularly for the under-developed Territories where there is a lack of institutions for further education, would be to provide a great training ground for them here. As we have the facilities here we can train students and by these means cementing the ties, which is an essential part of the developing Commonwealth as we now see it. At any rate, I think the Committee may be wrong in its assumption there, and I rather hope it is.
I think also that it has probably underestimated in paragraph 15 (3, b) about the migration of qualified students, people who have got their degrees. For one thing, as the Committee itself says, it has not been able to take into account the quality of those who go abroad to

get jobs, particularly in Canada and the United States. Salaries offered there do tend to attract the most able of our scientists, and this must have a disastrous effect in the long run. Secondly, I think the rate of migration will probably increase. I do not think it can be assumed that it will remain as the Committee do at its present 3 per cent. There is some little evidence to support that in the Report published yesterday, the Seventh Report of the Overseas Migration Board, which shows that in the engineering group and scientific groups there was a slight increase in the number of those who emigrated.
Of course, this Report deals only with those who go abroad by the long sea routes. Many qualified people go by air, so one has to add this number to that estimated by the Board. I do not want to go at great length into this, but the Board said,
It seems clear that our home demand for manpower in these categories is generally very high and likely to increase, and that our resources could become strained if the supply is insufficiently replenished.
It also says:
These losses could have a cumulative effect.
When the figure of those who go by air is added, I believe that 3 per cent. is probably an under-estimate.
On demand, I come now to the assumption—which is a large one and may well be wrong—about industrial requirements. First, the Zuckerman Committee Report says that, in the past, the requirements of manpower have been based on reference to the expansion of production. On this occasion, because some difficulty resulted from the old methods, the Committee took an industry by industry approach. Whatever basis it adopted, it seems to me that it under-estimated industrial requirements, and I hope it did.
The Committee said that in the period 1950 to 1959 industrial production went up by something over 2 per cent. a year, which is not very much, but that qualified manpower rose by 8 per cent. which is a fairly impressive increase. If one assumes that, in the next decade, there will be an increase in production of only 2 per cent., I believe that those figures suggest that manpower would rise by 140 per cent., but the Committee


believes that 90 per cent. will be sufficient. I do not understand how this figure was arrived at.
Either the Committee assumed that we shall not increase production much above 2 per cent. per annum, or that we shall use less and less scientific manpower, in which case industries will become more inefficient and in a more difficult competitive position. I find this figure difficult to understand.
The Committee seems on the whole to have accepted the view about industrial requirements that the pattern will continue as now. It says that requirements vary widely from firm to firm and industry to industry, but does not seem to have given much consideration to the need for an improvement in the ratio between the qualified and the non-trained personnel in some industries. It is true that in chemicals and oil about 8 per cent. of the staff are qualified, but in some other industries, such as constructional engineering, which has 1·7 per cent. qualified manpower, it is extremely low.
Indeed, even the Committee, in paragraph 43, feels that something should be done if the motor vehicle industry is to remain competitive in the modern world. I believe that we must assume that a much greater use of scientific manpower will be needed if industry is to do efficiently the task which faces us in the next five to ten years, whether under private or public enterprise. Employment of more trained scientific personnel is essential.
This is already recognised by the best private firms. For instance, I.C.I., although it must have reached the peak of efficiency in much of its production, had 15 per cent. of its staff technical managers in 1951, and this had risen to 16 per cent. by 1960. Admittedly, all manpower had gone up, but the proportion of scientific manpower had gone up even more. What is good enough for I.C.I. is what most other industries need. If they do not follow suit, we shall fall far behind in the provision of the scientific manpower that is needed.
I find it difficult to understand how this Report can be true when I read also the Report which has just been published, "Industrial Research in Manufacturing Industry", by the Federation of British Industries. I see that the

Parliamentary Secretary for Science has a copy of it. This is one of the most comprehensive investigations that has ever been made into more than 1,000 firms. Paragraph 11 of the Survey's conclusions states:
The main limitation on expansion of research activity is lack of qualified manpower. There is a standing vacancy rate of 13 per cent. overall in industry's research and development departments".
That is the position now. Can all this be remedied in four years? Incidentally, this Report shows that 80 per cent. of expenditure on private enterprise research is in six industries. There is a whole field where practically nothing at all is being done. I cannot believe that the requirements of scientific manpower for industry, if it is really to be competitive, can be reached in four years or even in ten years.
Whilst I do not take the view which a writer in the New Scientist did when he hoped that the Report on "The Long-Term Demand for Scientific Manpower" would earn the obscurity which it deserves and who said that it would be lamentable if official policy were based on what he described as slapdash statistics, it would be disastrous for the country and for industry if anything in the Report led to a slackening of effort either in the employment of scientists in industry or in the amount of national income we devote to education. What I am terribly afraid of is that the Treasury, consciously or unconsciously, will use the Report in negotiations with the University Grants Committee to find less than the annuities really required for expenses. That would be absolutely fatal. If the debate will have done something to show that the Report must be received with some qualification it will have done some good.

4.28 p.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: Time is short and I will try to be succinct. If the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) had as his objective the re-emphasising of the opening sentence of paragraph 15 in the introduction to the Report I am with him entirely. It would be quite wrong if we were not to watch against any complacency in this matter.
Although the Report itself states that we shall have a slight surplus, complacency is terribly dangerous and there


is no better reason for not being complacent than that given by the noble Lord the Earl of Halsbury in a debate in another place on 15th November. I know that I must not quote his words here, but Lord Halsbury was absolutely right when he said that most competitors tend to assume that their competitors will not get all they want and therefore they grade their demands for manpower of this kind on that assumption. If everybody else got all the new people that they wanted the original competitor would at once raise his sights.
I am quite certain that that is what will happen over the years, and from the comparative figures in a table at the end of this Report it is perfectly obvious that most industries visualise virtually the doubling of their present scientific manpower. I believe that some will go further as time goes on, especially if we go into the Common Market, since some of the industries on the Continent have a higher portion of scientific manpower than is the case in this country.
I want particularly to emphasise one or two points which have been made by my noble Friend the Minister for Science, and particularly what he said to a meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee in July when he put forward two propositions with which I entirely agree. The first is that if we get our educational pattern right, we shall in the end get everything right. I am sure that that is true. The second point is that after education the most important thing we can get right is the organisational relationship between Government and science.
Perhaps it is not proper for us to discuss the second proposition this afternoon; anyway there is not time to go into it fully. It is of immense importance that, just before we rise, we have the latest Report from the other Zuckerman Committee, and I hope that early in the New Year we shall be able to discuss this in more detail. As the hon. Gentleman indicated in opening the debate, the amount of literature pouring out on various subjects at which we ought to look in connection with science and technology is so vast that I do not think that any of us can hope to cope with it all.
One of the lectures which I most enjoyed reading was that given by Dr. B. V. Bowden, Principal of the Manchester College of Science and Technology, when he was speaking in Norwich in September to the Association for the Advancement of Science. He showed us what an appalling race is going on in the increase of scientific manpower. In fact, he went as far as to say that if the rate were to continue, and the population of the world were to grow in the next 250 years as it is now growing, not only would every man woman and child in the world be a scientist, but every horse every cow and every mule would be as well.
Our one hope is that such things as computers will save us from this ghastly prospect. As we go on we shall find ways of saving manpower, and therefore, whatever the estimates are, however accurately our statisticians may calculate, I am convinced that new inventions will throw their figures out sooner or later, and probably sooner than later.
The other thing which I should like to emphasise is this question of the utilisation of our manpower whom we have educated in scientific and technological subjects. In particular I should like to draw my hon. Friend's attention to a scheme which has been started in the three counties of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire, and about which there was a very interesting article in the Daily Telegraph by Colin Mares headed, "Linking Education to Industry".
I happen to know Sir John Evetts, the chairman of the association of the three counties, and I have been in correspondence with him. I should like to touch on one or two of the matters which he has raised with me. There has been almost complete unanimity amongst those who are members of the Three Counties Industrial Education Association that the craft apprenticeship should be cut down from five years, which they regard as too long. Indeed, when Sir John put that to the West of England Employers' Association, they too fully agreed, and yet when it was put to the National Federation it was turned down.
It is important for the Government to give consideration to this as soon as possible and to let us know their views. I know that there are divided opinions, and I believe that they vary industry


by industry, but certainly it is the unanimous wish of all the members of that Association that this should be done.
The second thing about which there was unanimity was that there ought to be some standard of inspection of all apprenticeship schemes, and I believe that this, too, is of great importance.
There were eleven conclusions, but I will deal with only three. The third was that there ought to be an industrial liaison officer in every county to strengthen the links between schools, technical colleges, and industry, and I am sure that this is something which ought to be done. Governments are renowned for indulging in almost complete bouleversement of military theory, and that is that Governments rarely consolidate success and nearly always try to bolster up the inefficient.
I am quite convinced that in this field the time is overdue for the Government to give some encouragement to those industries which are trying to put their own house in order in relation to matters such as we are now debating, and to be a little less generous in bolstering up those who have not done so, or are not prepared to do so. We have here an example of twenty-four companies getting together in three counties and promoting a scheme. Already the local education authority has agreed the terms of reference for the liaison officer that it is proposed to appoint, and also to pay one-third of the salary if the association will pay another one-third. Where the other third comes from is anybody's guess—perhaps from some great trust, or something of the kind.
But here is a field in which we can see the linking of governmental effort, local education authority effort, industrial effort, and the schools. If we can get something going in that way we shall see a better utilisation of our manpower. I do not think that any of us, however encouraged we are by the increasing numbers coming forward, ought to be at all complacent about the way in which we are utilising the manpower that we have trained.
The wastage figures at the end of the Report are rather startling. I will not go into them in detail, but they show that in various ways we lost 1,460 scientists and about 2,225 technologists in 1959. I do not know what each one

costs the State, his parents or the University Grants Committee, but I am convinced that the cost would run into several thousands of pounds for each one. With the need for economy in every field that we can think of we should try to ensure that there is no unnecessary wastage, and that we get full value for every penny spent.
I am sorry that I have delayed the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson), who also desires to speak, but I can assure my hon. Friend that I entirely support the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) in saying that we should have opportunities to debate these matters more fully and more often.

4.37 p.m.

Mr. Carol Johnson: Although the Report on scientific manpower which is the subject of this short debate has been subjected to some critical comment, it has had at least two good results. First, it has confirmed that there is now a wide general public interest in scientific affairs, as is evidenced by the increasing space given to scientific matters in our national Press. Secondly, it has alerted the nation to the necessity for planning ahead and considering what our future industrial requirements will be, and also for our assuming public responsibility for ensuring that the necessary scientists and engineers are available.
Although, naturally, no reference is made in the Report to the Common Market, I agree with the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) that this is likely to be an increasingly important factor. There is at least a possibility—and I believe it to be a strong probability—that in the near future we shall be moving into the Common Market. We shall then be faced with a degree of competition from our partners in the Community which is bound to present a challenge to our home industries. It will cause them, more than ever before, to have regard to the necessity for applying the latest scientific techniques. That, in itself, will provide a great stimulus to the demand for scientists and technologists in our affairs. This all confirms the view which many of us hold that it should be the duty and responsibility of the Minister


for Science to look ahead in order to see how best we can meet these problems.
It is true that the Report includes a number of qualifications and conditions, but there is no doubt that the outstanding conclusion of the Report, upon which public attention has been riveted, is the simple statement that by 1965 supply and demand in manpower should not be much out of balance, and that a surplus may exist after that date. I think it is that statement which in the main has caused most of the concern which has been expressed. I need not go into all the figures on which that is based. That has been dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington).
This is not the first report on this subject. I think it was in 1956 that the Advisory Council issued a survey on the problem. This being so, I should have thought it would have been interesting if we could have had the views of the Advisory Council on the present report which, as I understand it, is based upon an analysis of the subject prepared by the Statistics Committee of the Council, with conclusions by the Manpower Committee, and presented through the Council; but to which the members of the Council, so far as I know, have not addressed themselves at all. In view of the comments and criticisms forthcoming since its publication, there might have been some advantage perhaps in the Council holding back the Report and considering it carefully before publication. In view of what my hon. Friend has said about the findings of the F.B.I.'s latest report, it is obvious that there is a good deal more information which has to be gathered.
There are one or two points arising from the report to which I should like to refer briefly. It is assumed in the report that the large industries have reached, or will shortly reach, saturation level in the absorption of scientists. I think that an arguable proposition. If the country is to have the economic developments essential for our survival, if we go into the Common Market and face the challenge there, obviously large organisations will require the additional help of scientists as much as the smaller ones.
Secondly, there is this question, which was referred to by my hon. Friend, of having available a pool of scientists and technologists to be used for international purposes and particularly for the development of the under-developed areas of the world. There is an urgent need for the men, and they will have largely to be provided through the great Powers like ourselves and the United States. There is, of course, the loss by migration to be considered. I do not think that it is always the narrow economic rewards which attract our scientists to other countries. Often they go because they have placed at their disposal facilities and resources which are much better than could be provided in this country. I echo the regret voiced by my hon. Friend that we do not have more frequent opportunities to ventilate these matters. I hope that the Advisory Council and the Manpower Committee will not feel that they have been hardly treated during our discussion. These discussions have the great advantage of attracting public attention to these momentous issues. It was the Advisory Committee which did much of the groundwork in this matter.
It is clear that a rather wider and more scientifically based survey is required, and this is a problem which merits our constant and regular attention. The industrial health of our country depends to a considerable degree on the adequate provision of scientists and technicians. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary and his noble Friend will regard it as part of their job to see that these men are provided. I do not think that it required the debate today to bring to their notice the urgency of this matter, and I am sure that we shall all look forward with interest to what the Parliamentary Secretary has to say about the points which have been raised.

4.45 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Science (Mr. Denzil Freeth): I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) for raising in our last debate before Christmas the subject of this Report on the Long-Term Demand for Scientific Manpower. This Report evoked widespread public comment when it was published, as the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson) said, and has


already been debated in another place. It is, therefore, right that this House should debate it before we rise for the Christmas Recess. So, in the Christmas spirit, I congratulate the hon. Member.
The Report of the Committee has been attacked, I believe wrongly, on the estimates it has made of the long-term demand for scientific manpower. I think it right to see what it set out to do, and not to criticise it because it was not asked to undertake a task which was entirely different. Some people think that it should have attempted to assess the numbers of qualified scientists and technologists which the various sectors in particular industries "ought" to need in an ideal world over the next ten or fifteen years, inside or outside the European Economic Community, as the hon. Member for Lewisham, South mentioned.
I suggest that such an attempt could have no statistical validity at all. Comparisons with other countries are at best unsatisfactory because of the differences in terminology and standards of academic attainment. Similarly, it is impossible to find an absolute standard in any industry by which it is possible to formulate the number of scientifically qualified personnel which it "ought" to employ. The Committee, therefore, attempted, as in its previous exercises, to estimate what would be the likely demands for qualified scientific and engineering manpower. These, I suggest, are the only possible estimates that could be made.
The private sector of industry in 1959 employed about 44 per cent. of qualified manpower compared with 41 per cent. in 1956. The Committee estimated that the proportion would rise to nearly 50 per cent. by 1970. It is, however, important to note that this sector employs less than half of the country's total qualified manpower, and will probably continue to do so for some years to come. Therefore, to alter the final demand forecast figures by 5 per cent., for example, the increase in forecast demand by private industry would have to be more than 10 per cent. above the figure in the Report.
Criticisms have been made of the way in which the estimates for demand by industry were forecast, and I should like

to answer these criticisms. For the public sector, the Committee was in possession of such forecasts as are available. There would have to be quite major developments in Government policy before the figures could be altered sufficiently to make the Committee's final estimates wide of the mark. The relevant figures are in Table 5, on page 12 of the Report. This shows that two factors were involved in forecasting the qualified manpower demand for each industry, or group of industries.
These were, first, the probable increase in the so-called "qualified manpower ratio", that is, the percentage of qualified scientists and engineers to the total manpower employed by industry. The second factor was the forecast of how the total size of the industry, as expressed by the total numbers employed, was likely to increase. The estimated increase in the demand for qualified manpower is naturally a combination of these two factors.
Some critics have alleged that the Report is based on rather conservative figures obtained by Whitehall from industry and, so to speak, swallowed as a whole. I make it clear that while on these figures there has been considerable contact between the Departments concerned and experts in a number of industries, the forecasts are those of the Committee itself.
If hon. Members turn again to Table 5 of the Report they will see that the forecasts of demand allow for very significant increases. It was assumed that in most cases qualified manpower ratios would double between 1959 and 1970—a very striking change if it comes about, and involving in several cases, for example, the chemical industry, bringing the ratio of the industry as a whole up to the current ratio in the most progressive firms. This is rather different from what the hon. Member for Lewisham, South suggested because, if the average ratio rose to the current ratio in the best firms, the ratio in the best firms must be significantly higher than it is today. Quite apart from this, a considerably increased size was forecast for many industries, with the results given in the second column of the table.
Estimated demand for qualified manpower in 1970 is assumed to be much


more than double the 1959 figures, as is shown by the striking total estimated increase from 68,000 in 1959 to 145,000 in 1970, both figures referring to firms employing 100 employees or more. This table of the Report also brings out, as has been mentioned this afternoon, that certain large and scientific industries—particularly chemicals, aircraft and certain sections of the electrical industry—account for a very large part of the present and forecast future demand. Of course, my noble Friend and I share the hope expressed in almost every speech this afternoon that there will be great transformations in the less scientific and advanced industries during the next decade.
As I have emphasised, the Report allows for considerable increases in practically the whole of industry. I would mention the fourfold increase expected in the qualified manpower ratio in the shipbuilding industry. In making these forecasts, however, which are intended to be realistic, the authors of the Report are probably wise in not assuming spectacular transformations which are not at present in prospect.
In past Reports on scientific manpower, both the supply and the demand have been underestimated, as was referred to by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington. I understand that the Committee was conscious of this fact when considering the estimates tendered to it, and it decided upon its own figures with this in mind. The fact remains that the effect of these assumptions and the Committee's consequent estimates has been to raise the demand for qualified manpower employed in the whole of industry by well over 100 per cent., from 76,200 in 1959 to 163,500 in 1970. That is, the calculations assumed that the demand would more than double.
Reference has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) to paragraphs 14 and 15 of the introductory memorandum to the Report which refer to the possibility of there being a greater number of qualified scientists emerging from the universities and colleges of advanced technology after 1970 than are likely to be required for purely vocational occupations. That some people have misread these paragraphs in the way that the hon.

Member for Hayes and Harlington described, with the result that they have been caused acute concern, I naturally regret.
I rather part company from the hon. Member for Lewisham, South, however, in suggesting that the Report should have been held up and not published. My noble Friend and I believe that as a general principle, it is usually better to publish things than not so to do.

Mr. C. Johnson: I was not suggesting that the Report should be held up indefinitely. I was suggesting that the Advisory Council, having the Report before it, might have considered it and that some of the criticisms which have been vouchsafed could well have occurred to the Council and have led to improvement in the Report.

Mr. Freeth: It is difficult to throw reports back to those who make them because one does not like the results. That is a rather thorny path upon which to embark.
The demand described in the Report is predominantly a demand for scientists as scientists or engineers as engineers occupying purely vocational posts. The Report does not attempt to estimate the additional demands for scientists and engineers in management, administration, sales, and so on, which would arise if employers could feel assured that there was a widespread availability of suitably educated scientists and engineers for these purposes. I believe that there is a growing requirement for such persons by industry for non-vocational occupations, and I should like to repeat what I said in the House on 5th December and what my noble Friend said in another place on 15th November, namely, that the prospects for any able young man or woman now about to set out on a scientific or technological career are, and will remain, wider and brighter than ever before. We can never have too many good brains trained in these fields.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Isle of Ely referred to the scheme in the three counties. The matter on which he touched is not the direct responsibility of my noble Friend, but I will draw the attention of my right hon. Friends the Ministers of Education and Labour to what he said. If we are to have more scientists and engineers than


may be needed for purely vocational occupations, we shall have to develop fresh concepts on what scientific education should be to meet demands wider than the purely vocational, and I understand that the universities are devoting much attention to this matter. No doubt the Committee on Higher Education, under Lord Robbins, will take this aspect of the future pattern into account when it makes its report.
It is also worth remembering—and this deals with a point made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington—that the Report does not attempt to assess the numbers of graduates between different disciplines, either as a matter of demand or as a matter of supply. The question of mathematics and the shortage of mathematics teachers is serious, but I refer the hon. Member to what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education said in the House on 10th July and I can assure him that progress is continuing to be made.
On the question of the supply of qualified manpower, the Report had to look beyond the period for which it is immediately necessary, or even desirable, to plan. Its assumptions are consistent with existing plans for the expansion of the universities and the technical colleges in the first half of the 1960s. These plans are the responsibility of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education respectively. So far as at present announced, they do not go beyond 1967, although buildings begun in this period will have their main effect after that date. The Government must take into account the next quinquennial settlement with the universities and also the conclusions of the Committee on Higher Education before final plans can be made for the 1970s. I can assure the House that this Report will not be pigeonholed, but will be used as one of the factors in making future plans.
Mention has been made of the recently published Survey of Industrial Research by the Federation of British Industries. There are one or two points worth making here. As with the Committee Report which we are discussing, the survey is based on 1959 data and conditions. The main conclusion which is relevant to this debate is that which has

been quoted—namely, the 13 per cent. overall shortage in industries' research and development departments. This is not inconsistent with the conclusions of the Report which we are discussing.
I believe that the Report is a valuable document. A further census of demand for scientific manpower will be made next month. We intend to make these every three years. We shall look again at the estimates of long-term demands in the Report which we are discussing, and the assumptions upon which they are based, in the light of this fresh evidence, which will include evidence on migration.
Further, results of the sample survey of scientific qualifications on the 1961 Census of Population will become available as soon as the Registrar-General has completed his work. It will, therefore, always be possible to undertake a further and possibly an even more refined survey of the whole field.
The Report is, as I said, encouraging, but I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that it gives no grounds for complacency. But it shows that the Government's plans in this field are on the right lines, and this surely is a thought which must rejoice us all at this Christmastide.

4.59 p.m.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): I intervene briefly because I think that the House would wish to place on record that this debate is also the last occasion on which our Clerk, Sir Edward Fellowes, will sit in his Chair at the Table of the House. Notwithstanding all the well-deserved tributes which have already been paid to him, I should like to cite one final example of his wise judgment and good taste.
Sir Edward and Lady Fellowes have chosen to live in my constituency. I am sure that the whole House wishes them a long and happy retirement. I shall welcome this most distinguished constituent. May his retirement begin with a happy Christmas.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

It being Five o'clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, till Tuesday, 23rd January, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.